Shadows Love: Episode 4/ Dispatching by Jesse Orr

The metal spike sank sharply through the girl’s eardrum and impaled the cochlea. The sound of popping small bubble wrap leapt unpleasantly to the front of Lastor‘s mind. Fresh blood and other fluids oozed down her face as she screamed hysterically into the gag. The vampire leaned down and kissed her cheek, forcing the ice pick deeper and licking the blood that had dripped down from her ear as he grinned at the audience in his head.

“Enough,” Lastor said.

The vampire jerked up and snatched the ice pick from the hooker’s ravaged ear with a sick squelching sound.  Free of the encumbrance of the vampire, she began madly scrabbling at the gag, breaking her nails on the tight knot. The vampire took no notice.

“Who’s there?” His voice was like gravel. Behind him, the hooker had managed to claw the gag off and vomited red and gray filth on the alley floor. Blood dripped down off her face to pool with her last meal on the alley floor.

“See that? You went too deep! Now she’s going to die, and much too fast for your needs, I’m sure.” Lastor’s voice dripped sarcasm.

“They’re easy enough to find,” sneered the vampire, brandishing his pick threateningly in what he was reasonably sure was the right direction. “Show yourself!”

Lastor materialized out of the gloom to the left of the vampire’s focus. His peripheral was the first to notice and he snapped to the left, raising the pick for a strike. He took in Lastor’s face for a long moment before recognition dawned.

“Hey, you’re Audrey’s husband. Valorian.” 

Lastor’s eyes flashed at the mention of her. “I am. And you are not worthy to think her name, much less utter it.”

“Huh, I could get a lot of money for you,” the vampire grunted, and brandished his ice pick.

“Yes, you could.” Lastor’s face did not move.

“On the other hand I could use you in the entertainment,” the vampire said, pondering. “Or I could just kill you.”

Lastor grinned. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “No, you couldn’t. You won’t be allowed to kill me. You are inferior to many who have already tried and failed miserably. Awfully. Horribly. Lots of pain.” 

The vampire may have been thick but he recognized an insult when he heard one. With a roar, he charged at Lastor, ice pick raised. 

Lastor took another quick drag off his cigarette and flicked it in the charging man’s face, sending a shower of sparks into his eyes. Taking advantage of the vampire’s momentary blindness, Lastor ducked under the wrist with the pick and snatched it tightly. He gave a hard twist, sending the vampire over and onto his back on the ground with a thud. Before he knew what was happening, Lastor had pinned him down and slit his throat with one long fingernail. 

Leaving the vampire to gurgle helplessly on the ground and contemplate this latest development, Lastor crouched down and examined the whimpering girl laying in the fetal position. The blood had stopped flowing from her ear but the hooker’s eyes were blurry and unfocused. The damage was done. Lastor could feel her heart gradually slow down as her life ebbed. He touched the hooker’s brow and her eyes turned to him. She tried to speak but was cut off as Lastor dispassionately snapped her neck, ending her suffering forever. 

The alley was quiet and dark once more, with the scent of fresh blood hanging in the air. Lastor seated himself alongside the dead hooker and extracted another cigarette from the pocket housing them. Opening his book of matches, he received an unpleasant surprise – no matches. A book of nothing.

“Well that sucks,” Lastor grumbled, pushing himself back up and going over to the body of the vampire and dug through his pockets. 

“Glkfhaaau,” the vampire bubbled, air hissing out of his slashed throat.

Lastor looked at him in mild surprise as he picked through the meager offerings in the vampire’s pockets. “Still alive, then? You don’t have a lighter or anything do you?”

The vampire gurgled apologetically. Lastor pulled a pack of Marlboro Reds out of the vampire’s pocket and a book of matches with one remaining. Tossing the pack at the vampire’s face, Lastor lit his cigarette with the remaining match and stepped on the vampire’s neck, crushing his mid-cervical vertebrae. The gurgling stopped.

Lastor was still faced with an issue. There were still hours remaining before the wedding and entertainment. He needed matches. And he was getting hungry.

Nothing else for it, he would have to find somewhere to satisfy both. 

Lastor made his way through the alleys, following the distant sound of music. He felt like King Kong, drawn to a gate by drums for a maiden sacrifice. Before long he was peering at the entrance to an artistically run-down club, boarded up windows and dark peeling paint which could only be blood. 

Shadow’s Love Part 2 : Episode 3 / Hiding

Lastor’s face erupted in the glow of the flame held to the end of the cigarette. He inhaled, and the light vanished as the match was extinguished by the bloodstained dirt of the alley. Only the ember of the cigarette cast a light, smoldering in the darkness like a dying star.

He’d lost count of the hours he had sat, his back in the corner of an alleyway stained with blood and reeking of death. Even the air was still, as still as death, as silent as death, death death death. It was as if the place itself had died. The inky blackness was not penetrated by any of the ambient glow that lit the community. That suited Lastor just fine.

He could feel Audrey nearby, and it was maddening. He kept reminding himself the messenger knew what he was talking about. It was a good plan. He had been right so far, hadn’t he?

But that was the other thing that was bothering him – it had been too easy. Wait until the messenger returned, take Audrey out, sneak back above, and he would have Audrey back, happily ever after?

“Nobody is happy ever after,” Lastor muttered to himself as he extinguished the only light in the alley beneath his foot.

Everybody lies. Who stood to gain the most by lying to him? The messenger stood to gain a wife, the reward for Lastor, as well as having Lastor out of the way, and the elimination of his brother in a rise to power. 

And Audrey…

Lastor was still locked in fierce combat over his feelings for his wife. She had betrayed him and cast aside their years together for manipulative con artists without a second thought. Lastor could still see the hate in her eyes from the night she left. But saving her was… well it was a given. Lastor could not bear to leave her to this fate. But once they were out of danger, assuming the messenger was as he seemed, what then? Would she leave him again the next time she heard answers he could not give?

Someone was coming. 

Lastor pushed himself into a crouching position. It sounded like several people, but as the source rounded the nearest corner, Lastor made out only two shapes in the gloom. One was fighting and thrashing, giving off muffled screams through a gag. The other was significantly taller, with great hulking shoulders and a bald head. 

Lastor remembered what the messenger had said about vampires who used this alley to practice for the entertainment. Sure enough, the vampire stopped in the alley and bashed the captive’s head against the wall, knocking them to the ground. The hulking vampire grunted in apparent satisfaction and unslung a satchel from around his shoulders. Pulling it open, a match sparked and lit a black candle, throwing relief on the whole scene.

The vampire was large and muscular, with a goatee and heavily lidded eyes. He was clad in vinyl pants and a tight-fitting top. His face had a malevolent leer as he reached back into his bag and pulled a long thin ice pick from its depths. He ran his tongue down the length of it, savoring the taste of the dried blood there. 

Lastor could not see the victim; a crate was blocking his view. Taking care to stay out of the yellow glow of the candle, he edged around the crate until he saw a girl, no more than twenty. Her pantyhose were wadded up in her mouth, secured by a length of cord, her eyes rolled back in her head. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth, her nostrils, and down her neck from a wound on her head. She moaned and looked around dazedly. 

The vampire turned to face her. Her eyes focused with difficulty on the ice pick in his hands and they widened in terror. Her legs began working, desperately attempting to push her into a less submissive position. The vampire let her get halfway up before knocking her feet out from under her with a wild laugh and stabbed the ice pick into her head. The hooker screamed in her throat beneath the gag as the ice pick forced its way through six of the seven millimeters of the frontal plate of her skull. The vampire halted the ice pick’s journey through her head just short of puncturing her brain, sparing it by barely a millimeter. Lastor felt a twinge in his forehead and shuddered.

The vampire shoved her down roughly onto her side and straddled her, pinning her arms to her. Shoving her head into the dirt, he took the ice pick and began slowly and delicately inserting it into the hooker’s ear. She sobbed, breathing raggedly through the gag, and redoubled her efforts to escape, but the vampire’s grip was like iron and held her steady as the pick continued its inexorable penetration of her ear canal. Lastor could hear crying now, sobbing through the gag as the blood began to flow in earnest from her ear. Here the vampire finally encountered some resistance. He left the pick there, balanced on her eardrum under its own weight, pushing gently on it with one finger and releasing the pressure, bouncing it on the eardrum. The hooker screamed, a desperate guttural sound of horrified anticipation.

“Nhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The vampire seemed dissatisfied and cast about for a suitable rock. He came up with a hefty chunk, at least a pound. Grinning, he held it over the ice pick and dropped it. 

Shadows Love Part 2 : Episode 2 – Flight

Lastor poked his head out of the entrance to the basement of the council hall, eyes taking in everything. There were more vampires Below now. Lastor dropped to his hands and knees, scurrying beneath an ornate table at the side of the main room as feet passed by. Peering over the table, he could see what had to be the head council leader and his entourage heading down the staircase to the dungeon. Throwing caution to the winds, Lastor stood and walked purposefully out the door, heading to the street as if he had every right to be there. 

Outside, Lastor glanced up at the ladder leading down from the tunnel to the underground and saw a steady trickle of vampires descending. It would only be a matter of time before someone recognized him. Already, he could hear the footsteps of the council leader’s entourage making their way to the basement, the sound echoing in the stillness. Hugging the shadows surrounding the council building, Lastor heard a bloodcurdling scream of fury rent the underground air. They had found the death he had left behind in the basement where they kept Audrey.

Adrenaline coursing through him, Lastor darted across the gap between buildings and dove through the partially collapsed door of the nearest structure. He threw himself against the ruined door, jamming it into the doorframe as best he could before blocking it in with some debris. That done, he peered through one of the cracks he had been unable to stifle. 

An hour later, the council guards known as the Pinions had all been slain for allowing the death of the council leader’s son. Their bodies were being draped over the giant boulders standing in front of the council building atop the staircase. Rivulets of blood were dripping down the boulders and trickling down the stairs. The limp bodies now looked only vaguely human. The council leader’s tears stained his cheeks red as he raved, extorting his subjects to find the intruder as he cradled his son’s severed head in his arms. 

Twice, someone had tried to force the door of his hovel open, causing Lastor to throw his weight against what was left of the hovel’s door and prepare for the worst. But twice, someone had yelled to whoever was at the door, calling them away, and he had been left alone.

He looked back out his window and started as he saw the messenger come striding up to the center of the courtyard where his father stood, glaring at the bodies he had just flayed. He looked over and saw his son approaching. 

“Your brother is dead,” the council leader said. “You must marry the girl.”

The messenger’s face was grave. “Why have you murdered the Pinions?”

“They have failed me. They have allowed Lastor Valorian to torture and murder my most beloved son Nicholas.”

The messenger’s face darkened for a second, barely betraying his disgust at the council leader’s blatant favoritism, before returning to a blank. “How can you be so sure it was Valorian?”

In a sudden burst of rage, the council leader hit the messenger across the face. “Idiot! Use your head! Who else would dare enter the dungeon and murder my son? Who else’s wife is chained up in the dungeon?”

The messenger winced slightly as his father hit him, but his voice was steady. “Why would Valorian bother to learn the location of The Land Below, murder Nicholas and two guards, and leave the girl?”

The council leader glared as he reviewed the Pinions, stretched across the bloody rocks. A crowd was gathering, onlooking from a distance. No one was keen to get too close to the bodies, or to the council leader. 

“No one,” the council leader said finally. “No one else would dare. But it matters not You will marry her, and the Entertainment will go forward.”

Throwing himself to the ground inside the hovel, Lastor clutched his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. There was no end to this madness. He sat, wracking his brains in the ruined hovel, trying to think of what he should do next. All he could think of was a bottle of liquor, surely available at the nearest liquor store Above, no questions asked. It would render all of his problems obsolete, at least temporarily. At this point, temporary was all he cared about. 

These thoughts were interrupted as the ruined door slammed open, throwing Lastor aside as it was shoved in from the outside. A shadow darker than the gloom of the underground cavern entered the little hovel. Lastor tried to make himself as invisible as possible but the silhouette turned its head and saw him.

“There you are!” the messenger hissed, pulling the remains of the door into the frame behind him. “What happened? I gave the Pinions the slip and when I got back, they were all slaughtered and my father is carrying Nicholas’s head around.”

“It got messy,” Lastor said, shrugging. 

“If you were wise, you would remain hidden until I come find you, after the marriage. Once we are Above, this entire ordeal should be behind us. I suggest you make your way to the section of the community I was hiding in. Take the path to the right of the council steps and continue onward. Stay to the right. You will find yourself in the alleys used to practice for the entertainment.” The messenger grimaced. “You will know when you find it.”

Peering out of the hovel’s door, Lastor saw to the right of the council steps a path leading to the yawning chasm between the council and the nearest building. Like a breeze, Lastor slipped out and into the shadows. 

Instantly the blackness swallowed him. Leaning against the wall to let his eyes adjust to the gloom, Lastor could feel the oppressive dark crushing down on him. Evil had been here. This alley was thick with the scent of death, decay, and blood. 

Lots of blood.

Shadow’s Love – Part 2 – Episode 1 – Reuniting by Jesse Orr

Wiping his hands disdainfully on the guard’s clothing, Lastor turned to Audrey. Tears streamed down her face as she looked at him pleadingly. Lastor could almost hear her crying for him inside his head. He walked toward her slowly, his eyes penetrating her, staring deeply inside her soul.

He reached her and stopped. She was trembling. Slowly he raised a hand to caress her face, his fingers drinking in the touch of her skin. She tilted her head a little, still pleadingly staring at him, her eyes speaking a thousand words. As if in answer to her unspoken request, he leaned in and kissed her. 

Everything vanished – the years past, the hate, the chains, the cage, the dead and senseless bodies that littered the ground around them. Everything that had ever happened turned vapor and inconsequential. They were all there was, and they were all they needed. Their kiss was forever.

Until Lastor was brought back to reality by the sound of the council leader’s brat sobbing. Gurgling, really, was all he could manage. With an effort, Lastor broke away from Audrey and turned to the terrified brat who was scrabbling toward the stairs while still holding his injured chest and wheezing a fine red mist. Curious, Lastor crossed the room and put a hand on the brat’s sternum, feeling around none too gently. The brat wailed louder until Lastor silenced him with a backhand to the face and pressed an ear to the brat’s chest, listening. As the brat struggled to suck air, Lastor could hear a rushing and bubbling sound coming from his lungs. As he listened, the brat coughed, spewing blood into Lastor’s face.

Lastor beamed. “A splintered rib appears to have punctured your right lung! That can’t feel good. But you won’t have to feel it for much longer.” 

The brat tried to start sobbing again but could only gasp for air with tears rolling down his cheeks. Lastor stroked the brat’s face, tracing the intricate makeup lines the brat had drawn, speaking soothingly. “You are going to die, here and now. Before you go, though, there is something you need to know.”

Lastor brought his lips close to the brat’s ear and whispered, “You are not special. There is NOTHING about you that is special. If you had known that, you would not be here now. So you see-” 

Lastor slowly sliced a nail through the brat’s cheek, tearing it so deeply the brat’s fangs were visible through the cheek. Now the brat was trying to breathe while drowning in his own blood. 

“…this is all your fault.”

Gurgling. 

A convenient rock sat on the ground, close enough to reach. Lastor picked up the rock, bringing it close to the brat’s face and scraping it up and down against the fangs in his mouth. 

“You prize these so much, how would it feel to lose them? Which would sting more to you, the pain or the humiliation?” Lastor nearly crooned, bearing down with the rock as he spoke the words. The grinding sound was soft to his ears, but must have been deafening to the brat inside his own head. Screaming, blubbering, he tried desperately to pull away from Lastor and only succeeded in pressing harder against the stone wall. 

Lastor delivered a sharp blow to the brat’s left fang. The cracking sound raised the hair on Audrey’s neck, however she did not look away, nor did the vicious pleasure leave her eyes as Lastor performed the same service on the other fang before reaching in with both hands and twisting to and fro before ripping the brat’s fangs out between his wails of agony.

“Some vampire,” Lastor sneered, waving the fangs before the brat’s eyes.

“Lastor,” Audrey said softly, and his eyes snapped to her. He had almost forgotten the sound of her voice. In that moment, he was reminded again of everything she had ever meant to him, and everything he had lost. For the moment, he stared at her, unable to look away.

The brat groaned, struggling to move his head.  

In a savage rush, Lastor‘s fangs tore into the brat‘s throat, burrowing deep, only stopping their penetration upon scraping against the spine, just to be sure. He sucked the blood from the brat, feeling his life drain away, relishing the feeling of the brat’s vitality draining away. Eventually, it was gone, sweet as it was rising from the corpse, he went to Audrey and kissed her, fresh blood on his lips. She kissed back, hungrily licking the blood from his mouth, seeking strength. Finally, tearing away, he stared at her, eyes wild.

“Lastor…please…you have to take me,” Audrey said, her voice shaking, her mouth bloody, her tongue running back and forth across her lips, desperate to consume every last drop. “You can’t leave me here.”

“My darling, I never wanted to be here,” Lastor said, shutting his eyes and pressing his forehead to hers, willing himself to do what needed to be done. “But the reality is that I cannot take you with me now. You must stay here for a little longer.”

Audrey’s eyes filled with tears. “But you must…if you leave me…they’ll…” she broke down, weeping softly, her head hanging down between her pinioned arms.

Lastor took her face in his hands, looking into her eyes. “You must trust me, my love. I will come back to you.”  He took a breath and sighed, a pale finger caressing her face. “I will always come back to you.”

A teardrop slid slowly down her face, and she nodded. He kissed her once more and turned back to the staircase. He listened carefully for any voices alerted to the carnage in the basement. Miraculously, no one appeared to have heard it. He turned to look at Audrey, who managed a weak smile at him. Before he could falter, he turned away from her and crept up the stairs.

Shadows Love: Retribution

Lastor hit the ground, hugging the darkest part of the darkest shadows. The community was being lit with what looked like fireflies in lanterns hung from poles, casting a cool pulsating glow for about five feet. Avoiding everyone, he edged around a building. Just as the mansion came in to view, a voice behind him whispered “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Lastor jumped. The messenger was standing behind him, looking annoyed. “Look,” he said,” if you prefer to be alone, speak now and I will leave you to your own devices. Or, IF you prefer, I can assist you in making the community play into our hands.”

“Then hurry up,” Lastor snarled, his fangs showing. “I want this over with. Yesterday.”

“The mansion has a number of Pinions guarding it. I will distract the Pinions guarding the front door. You will enter, and should not encounter any resistance. Most of the residents are Above now, during the darkness on the surface. The competition is tomorrow, and they must acquire their subjects. You will be able to sense her once you are inside. Get to her quickly. My brother is a coward and will have several protecting him as he attempts to break down your wife’s resistance. You must kill them as well.”

“Gladly.” Lastor’s face split into the nightmare of a smile. 

The messenger loped off toward the Pinions Lastor could now see blocking the door. There was silence. Then yelling and crashing and the Pinions sped off.

Lastor darted across the roadway and was through the door of the council hall in a trice. Just as the messenger said, there was no one there. He concentrated, locking on to Audrey’s aura, blocking all else. He could feel her, so tantalizingly near. He followed her through the council building and in to one of the hallways of the mansion. There was a door ajar, leading to a set of stairs going down further into the earth.

Lastor quietly stepped down several stairs. The stairway was narrow, enough for him to feel buried alive. Quietly he descended the last steps, blood pounding in his ears. He peered around the corner.

Audrey was chained to the rear bars of a cage set against the rear wall. The cage was small, with barely enough room to stand. A small vampire stood before the cage, chains, spikes, leather cuffs and rings adorning his wrists and fingers. His hair hung in his eyes, which he kept brushing back, only to fall into his eyes again. He was flanked by two bodyguards who looked as if they had come from Above. Exactly like bouncers outside nightclubs, so these stood, mountains of muscle and sinew. Only their dark eyes and unnaturally pale countenances belied their inhumanity.

The three had their backs turned, facing the cage. The brat was inside with the door open, taunting Audrey as she hung from the bars, slim wrists bitten by the harsh chain they were bound with. She looked back at the brat defiantly, no fear in her eyes. Suddenly, she raised her head and looked directly at Lastor.

It was as if someone punched Lastor in the stomach and applied a vice to his heart. The shock in her eyes was quickly replaced by fear as all three heads turned, following her eyes to face him. There was a pregnant pause where the four regarded each other. The bodyguards looked uncertainly at the brat, waiting for orders.

The brat stepped forward, peering at Lastor insolently. “Who the fuck are you?”

Lastor’s voice was like ice. “That’s my wife you have chained up there.”

The brat’s eyes widened in horror. He opened his mouth to shout and Lastor leapt forward, striking him hard in the chest, sending him flying into the wall and crashing to the floor, sobbing for breath as a little blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

The bodyguard on the left lunged at Lastor, who hit him with a kick to the side of his face, breaking the guard’s jaw and rendering him senseless before the rebound carried his head into the wall. The other guard clenched a fist and swung, catching Lastor in the side of the head and sending him flying into the wall. The guard stomped over and lifted Lastor by the throat, leaving his feet dangling as he slammed Lastor into the wall again and again. He clawed desperately at the guard’s hands, feeling himself starting to black out. In the corner he could hear Audrey weeping softly.

Blindly, Lastor’s hands followed the guard’s beefy arms to his shoulders and up to reach his eyes. The guard screamed as his corneas were shredded, and the retinas ruptured, spilling out onto his face. The guard dropped him and fell to the ground, huddling in the fetal position with his hands over his bloody face, agonized screams echoing off the rock. His hands found his deflated eyes resting on his cheek and screamed louder. 

Massaging his own neck, Lastor placed a foot on the guard’s neck and hopped, letting his full weight bear down. There was a wet crunching sound, and the guard’s screams stopped.

Wiping his hands disdainfully on the guard’s clothing, Lastor turned to Audrey. Tears streamed down her face as she looked at him pleadingly. Lastor could almost hear her crying for him inside his head. He walked toward her slowly, his eyes penetrating her, staring deeply inside her soul.

He reached her and stopped. She was trembling. Slowly he raised a hand to caress her face, his fingers drinking in the touch of her skin. She tilted her head a little, still pleadingly staring at him, her eyes speaking a thousand words. As if in answer to her unspoken request, he leaned in and kissed her. 

TO BE CONTINUED

Shadow’s Love : The Land Below

“The council is our system of government. They choose everything: the governing codes, Admissions, Subtractions, and the…entertainment,” he said in obvious disgust. Anticipating Lastor’s question, the messenger hastened to explain. “The entertainment is a weekly ritual. It is a competition of torture, its subjects brought by the week’s contestants. Some subjects are convinced they will become vampires at last, fulfilling some pathetic fantasy but most are brought forcefully, as lambs to the slaughter.”

“Truly they have forgotten. Neither life is less deserving, we all deserve to die.” Lastor stopped pacing. “How is it possible no humans know of this?”

The messenger waved a hand dismissively. “Currently, most believe that the sewer line is so precariously balanced geographically that to go in would be near suicide. The sewers break through to a monstrous cavern, with space enough to comfortably hold hundreds, protected from the sun by miles of dirt. Those with admission may come and go as they please, those craving admission must win their favor to gain entry. 

“You are Lady Audrey’s husband. They have been watching one who fits your description since the councilman’s son decided he would marry your wife. If you were foolish enough to go through the proper channels, they would kill you in a heartbeat.”

“How do they know who I am?” Lastor demanded.

“They broke into her mind.” The messenger looked downcast. “As a result, they know everything about you. They know her passion for you is equaled only by yours for her, and that eventually, somehow, they can expect you to arrive. As such, they will watch for you and hunt you until you are in pieces. Or dead, but they do generally prefer pieces. It will be nearly impossible for you to break in and free her and you will almost certainly not survive. There are other ways of liberating your wife.”

            Lastor remained quiet, his eyes searching for answers. 

The messenger took a breath. “You recall that she is to marry the son of a council member.” 

Lastor nodded. 

“You would of course have no way of knowing that I am the council member’s second son. It is to be my brother who marries your wife. Were he to be unable to marry her for any reason, I will immediately be required by the council to marry her. If I marry her, she will be in my control and must obey me, as stipulated by the council code. From there we have but to remove her at our leisure.”

“Clever.” Lastor looked around him and grabbed one of the bartenders who was coming out the service entrance for a smoke and looked him in the eyes. “May I have a cigarette please.”

The bartender nodded demurely and pulled the unopened pack from his pocket and handed it as well as a book of matches to Lastor.

“Thank you,” Lastor said, unwrapping the cigarettes. “You can go now.” 

The bartender nodded again and walked back into the club with a vacant look on his face.

The lighter flickered in the dark, the flame unruffled by the slightest breath of wind. The night felt dead. Lastor rolled his eyes, taking a drag off his cigarette. He squeezed his eyes tight shut for a moment until sparkles danced in his vision. “When do we leave?”

Lastor and the messenger ducked through a wrought iron archway in the oldest part of town, leading down an alley that was practically falling apart around them. Bits of mortar crumbled as Lastor’s long coat brushed past. They picked their way through piles of brick and rubble, following what was only a vaguely beaten path. 

The messenger finally stopped. He crouched down and set his fingers into the manhole cover and pulled it up as easily as if it were a plate. He slid the cover aside and climbed down the rusty ladder. Lastor followed, pulling the cover back behind him and dropping the last ten feet or so to the dirty sewer floor.

Lastor lost count of the twists and turns they made. The scent of ancient human waste overrode all else, and Lastor could no more have scented a den of vampires than heard them.

The tunnel began to glow with an ambient light that gently filled the tunnel, growing brighter slowly. As they rounded a final turn, Lastor’s stomach dropped as the floor suddenly ceased to exist. Hundreds of yards away, he could vaguely make out the other side of what was an enormous cavern. Lastor edged closer to the precipice and peered out over the edge.

It was an amazing sight. The cavern was large enough to fit several Coliseums and a few Chrysler buildings between them. There were buildings in crooked rows, shacks, houses, mansions, what appeared to be clubs, and at the center a large arena, all cobbled together with collected rubbish. From their vantage point, they had a bird’s eye view of the center of the arena, empty but for a single raised platform with an altar. Beside the arena was a giant black building with pillars lining it like bars. The back of the black building was connected to one of the statelier mansions. The whole cavern was lit by the soft greenish-white glow from what appeared to be streetlights.

Lastor tore his eyes away from the building and looked at the messenger. “So. We’re here. Now what?”

The messenger smirked. “Now you go kill my brother.”

Lastor’s eyes flashed and he allowed himself a tiny smile. “Where is he?”

The messenger closed his eyes and was very still, searching as Lastor had done. He was quiet for a moment or two. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Lastor. 

            “With your wife.”

Lastor’s eyes blazed. Before the messenger knew what was happening, Lastor had vanished down the giant ladder to the cavern floor. 

Shadow’s Love : Chapter 11/ Enlightenment

The messenger looked at him approvingly. “She knew you would need some time and told me to tarry a while.”

Lastor was torn between amusement and annoyance. Did she still know him that well? Was he really that predictable? 

“She was…as you say… my wife,” Lastor said, more to himself. He absent-mindedly touched the pocket where her letter was folded and shook his head. “Where do I go?” His eyes narrowed. “How did I not know of this place, this… land below?”

“It is a place of class and civilization – at least that is what they claim. In reality it is nothing more than a cesspool of pompous ostentatious fakes. They have forgotten; that vampires are not gods, merely immortal, victims of circumstance, no more than accidents, or bad timing. They glorify in their status, wallow in it, and deify it.” The messenger shook his head scornfully. “The only ones who crave the land below are those who think they are special, instead of merely different.”

“You still have not explained how I did not know of such a place.” Lastor tapped his foot.

“Think about it, Lastor. Would you seek out such a community? It is relatively new, two or three years strong at most.”

Two years.

Unbidden, Lastor’s mind flashed through the past to a memory from just over two years ago.

  “You don’t know anything about what we are! You just float through the world doing as you please! You never think about what it all means; you don’t care what it all means!” 

Lastor’s eyes narrowed. “And when you learn what it all means, what then? You will suddenly discover your purpose in life? What will they offer you that I cannot?” His tone was scornful.

Audrey’s temper, so near the breaking point these days, was tested again and she had to refrain from picking up something large and heavy and throwing it at Lastor’s head. She contented herself with speaking slowly and clearly, venom dripping from every syllable. “I don’t know, you idiot, but THEY do! That’s the whole point! I DON’T know because of you!”

“They say they know. Nobody knows the meaning of life, Audrey, it means something different for everyone. Nobody can find happiness and meaning for the general population.  Anyone who claims they know it is either manipulating the weak-minded or so self-deluded they actually believe it. Nobody knows why vampires are here. We’re just an accident. A cosmic fuckup.”

“No, you’re just an accident that happened to me! Now I’m stuck like this, something no one knows anything about. At least when I was really human I knew I had a purpose, even if I didn’t know what it was yet, and I knew where I came from. The only way I can stand this is if I at least have some glimmer of what being a vampire means, and you obviously don’t have a fucking clue.”

“What makes you think anyone else does? What makes you think these cretins know anything more than I do? Audrey, the answers you seek DO NOT EXIST. Do you think there are books written with all the answers and I just don’t have them?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me!”

“Go then.” Lastor’s voice was flat and cold, emotionless. 

“What?” Audrey snapped.

“GO ON!!” Lastor roared, eyes blazing. “LEAVE! Go live with your friends wherever they think is good enough, since here obviously isn’t anymore!”

“It never was, I just didn’t know yet,” Audrey sneered, jerking her coat over her shoulders. 

Lastor heard an odd ringing sound in his ears as her voice seemed to echo inside his head and the hateful look in her eyes as she glared at him seemed to magnify, swelling up until her scorn was all he could see, shrouded in red mist.

Without even realizing it, Lastor had crossed the room and lifted her up by the throat, his nails digging in. Trickles of blood dripped down to stain Audrey’s shirt, as he threw her forcefully through the door leading outside. 

***

Lastor blinked, coming to his senses, breathing heavily with the remnants of the red mist still fading. “Indeed.”

The messenger must have guessed what was in his heart, for he quickly resumed talking, grounding Lastor’s thoughts firmly to the present. “The way to the land below is no lighted promenade either. Being underground, naturally, one must go down.” His eyes dropped to a manhole cover nearby.

Lastor’s eyes followed, and then came up to look at the messenger. “You MUST be joking.”

The messenger chuckled. “No. There is an old sewer system that has not been used for decades. It is dry and relatively tidy. Elitists are not likely to sully their feet with mortal filth, I assure you.”

“Well I’m no elitist but I’m not too keen on trudging through sewage, bound for some subterranean promised land.” He pointed a finger at TM. “And you. What are you doing there, if all its residents are phony?”

“I’m sure you will agree, there is benefit in seeming to support the most powerful beings of our kind, artificial as they may be.”

“If you’re lying to me—” Lastor began but TM held up a hand.

“Sir, your lady has already enlightened me as to the consequences of deceiving either of you. I do not wish, as the Lady Spencer has kindly offered, to be bound and gagged by my own intestines as you…er…fornicate in my blood?”

Lastor smiled in spite of himself. “That’s Audrey all right.”

“Ah, but perhaps not for long,” TM said, his face growing dark. “Soon she is to marry the eldest son of the senior member of the Council of Choice, and her personality will be… quite irrelevant.”

Lastor’s smile vanished. “Council…married??”

“Well obviously she would prefer to avoid this eventuality as well, which I daresay is why we are talking now.

Shadow’s Love : Chapter 10 – Desperate Plea

Lastor was awakened by a knocking at the door of his hotel room. He lifted his head, tasting the brandy. His head spun, punctuated by knocking. Groping his way upright, Lastor scrabbled for the bathroom doorknob, finally found it, cursing, and opened the door. His head did not explode in agony, so he opened his eyes. The blinking red numbers said 10.30pm. At least the sun was finally gone.

But then… who the hell was knocking at his door at 10.30?

“Go away,” he croaked at it. “I’m paid for the week.”

“No, sir,” said the door, polite and calm. “I bring a letter, for your eyes only.”

Lastor rolled his eyes. “From who?”

“The Lady Audrey Spencer.”

The next thing the messenger knew, the door had crashed open and he was suddenly seized by the throat with iron fingers, pulled into the room, and slammed up against the wall as a dark shadow roared “WHO sent you???”

The messenger reached up and adjusted the glasses Lastor had knocked askew. “The Lady Audrey Spencer, sir. She was very adamant about it. I was told –” 

“I don’t care what she told you. Give me the letter, NOW.” Lastor grated, his eyes blazing.

The messenger reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. Lastor snatched it and dropped him roughly, breaking the wax seal before the messenger hit the ground. Lastor pulled out the letter and immediately was assaulted by an all too familiar scent that erased any doubts as to the letter’s origin.

Audrey.

My Love

I realize you want me dead for what I’ve done to you. The irony is that I have been dying inside since last I saw you, and if you want me dead, all you have to do is nothing. I no longer understand my actions – their way has escaped me. I know you won’t trust a word of this; you would be a fool to, particularly now, but not half the fool I am for having to say these empty meaningless words: I’m sorry. 

I am betrayed., and now their prisoner. I was first tempted by the answers they dangled before me, only to learn too late that they are nothing more than lies spun by a crafty spider. They will kill me if I try again to escape. Their coldness numbs my aching heart as my blood grows ever weaker and more sluggish. 

Please, Lastor, save me from this. Only you can return me to myself. I do not live without you. I have always been

Yours,

Audrey

***

Lastor’s eyes rose from the letter to the messenger’s face. “Where is she?”

“She is being held in the land below, deep underground,” the messenger said.

“What makes her think I would do anything to help her?” 

“She was your wife before, was she not?”

Lastor crushed the paper and threw it to the side. “I think ‘was’ is the key word there, little man. Now leave, before I kill the messenger.”

The little man brushed himself off and stepped over the rubble in the doorway, stopping to look back at the vampire. “Then you never really loved her anyway.”

Before Lastor could move or react, the messenger was gone. 

Lastor stood with the messenger’s words ringing in his ears over and over, burning into his subconscious. Finally, he moved to the door, barring it as best he could. Going to the dresser, he pulled out a half bottle of whiskey and drained it. Drunkenly throwing the bottle aside and not really hearing it shatter, Lastor stumbled toward the corner which housed the crumpled paper. Unfolding it, Lastor read the letter again, slowly. 

He left the hotel room, barely discernible from the shadows in the dim hall. His long black coat wrapped around him like a shroud, his pale face the only thing to show through the darkness. His eyes, dark and cloudy for so long, now burned with a fiery purpose. The hooker sitting in the stairway saw and hastened to move out of his path, a stained needle still hanging from her arm, teeth as gnarled as her veins. Lastor’s eyes swept over her, noting her indiscernibly. Pausing in his stride, he looked at her. Deaf to her protests, he plucked the syringe from her wasted arm, snapping it beneath his boot. 

“Hey – what the—”

The hooker started upright angrily but Lastor grabbed her face and threw her sideways, knocking her head against the wall. She slumped to the floor, senseless as he stepped over her, wiping his hand fastidiously on his coat.

Stepping out onto the street, Lastor inhaled deeply, tasting the air. Without hesitating, he turned left, following the messenger’s smell.

Lastor pushed a door open and was immediately assaulted by the pounding of industrialized gothic beat. The walls were black with red trim and the babble of voices almost drowned out the music. Different kinds of smoke hung thick in the air. Dimly lit bodies in various stages of undress undulated beneath multicolored lighting. A DJ with a bored face was mixing techno at an elevated console behind a spool of razor wire.

As Lastor’s eyes moved over the room, he spotted the messenger sipping something red from a rocks glass and playing with a cherry stem as he nodded politely at the pretty thing that was chatting him up. As Lastor watched, the messenger stood up and said something to the pretty girl, taking her empty glass, before picking his way delicately through the crowd to the bar. 

Lastor moved between the patrons and materialized behind the messenger, waiting for him to deposit the empty glasses on the bar, before grabbing him by the back of the collar and steering him forcefully through the crowd and out a nearby service entrance. The messenger did not look surprised to see him.

“You will tell me how to get to the land below,” Lastor said. 

 

Shadows Love Chapter 9 : Tortured

Lastor lay there with Audrey wrapped around him, lost in the past as she dozed. He stroked her hair and she shifted, drawing closer to him, soft sounds coming from whatever dreamland she was inhabiting. 

Lastor remembered the tears she had cried, telling him things she had never been able to confide in anyone else. He remembered how she clutched him to her as she sobbed, desperate to know someone else was there for her, someone who would never hurt her, always protect her. He remembered her cries of fear in her sleep, her fitful whimpers as she tossed and turned, tortured by unknown demons.

Many had tried to “fix” her with counseling, medications, and therapy, but everyone knew there had to be something wrong. In looking, Lastor could not see anything amiss but unhappiness and unnecessary medications clouding her mind. 

She had been off the meds and unhappiness merely a day before the change was noticeable. Lastor had not been surprised. She was giddy, bubbly, and full of life, giggling like a schoolgirl as silly jokes rolled off her tongue. 

Lastor knew his life was nothing special. Spending most of every day in solitude, locked inside his own head, being forced to look in the workings of his mind for entertainment was his choice. Having never been impressed with the intelligence of most of humanity and not enjoying the company of most other vampires left him with little option but to become self-reliant. The numerous times he had associated with others of his kind had led him to the conclusion that excluding him, vampires lorded their status over others, and that biologic superiority demanded respect beyond their years. Disagreeing with the estimations of his kind’s worth and living inside his head sometimes for days on end without speaking a word had left its mark. Lastor had developed very little patience with others, abhorring crowds and keeping his back to the wall at all times. Indeed, it was common for him to be seen in a public setting only as long as it took him to be seen. 

Lastor had more or less resigned himself to being alone for eternity, before happening upon Audrey. All the humans with whom he had attempted to forge any relationship had not lasted longer than a weekend before infuriating him and forcing him to end them. The female vampires he chanced to meet and bring back may have been initially enamored of him, but when they saw the extent of introspection in his life, they left him, talking amongst themselves of how strange he was, even for a vampire. Lastor for his part watched them go, sighing inwardly as his opinion of his own kind was lowered once again, and once again he was left alone, sitting in the dark, chasing his thoughts one by one around his head until they vanished into the nothingness that was there. 

Someone had finally smiled on him. He had simply catered to a whim and indulged in a night of innocent blood, and he had found someone who loved and accepted him for who he was, who he wanted to be, without attempting to change him to fit their notions of what someone should be. This was the sort of thing that happened in bad fiction. Occasionally one might hear of someone taking a chance and having it pay off, but that’s all it ever is, just hearing of another’s luck. Lastor kept expecting the worst, having been bitten enough times to question luck. The surrealism of the nights kept mystifying him. The way time ceased to exist, how the night would fly by until the sun chased them into the dark recesses of the mansion, the hours they spent wrapped in each other’s minds through their eyes, unwilling to look away. When things seem too good to be true, they usually are. 

It came to pass that this was one of those times.

“AARRGH!!!” 

Lastor jerked awake as if trying to stop himself from falling. Breathing hard, he stared unblinkingly at the ceiling, willing the image in his mind to fade. His pulse began to drop, and his breathing slowed. Looking down at the silver ring he still wore on his right hand, he saw his fingers unconsciously curled up into fists. Opening them hurt; the long nails had dug into his palms. Trickles of blood ran down his forearms. 

Reaching for the bottle beside the bed, he squinted at the clock and it’s winking red light. Nine in the fucking morning. Why did the dreams have to wake him so early? Now it was another day of forcing himself to sleep through the world’s waking life from behind shades that only marginally succeeded in blocking out the sun. The residual glow gave him a headache, which another mouthful of brandy did nothing to fix. His unfocused vision lit upon the corpse on the couch, her eyes staring in horror out through her bloody face. He had met her last night, in hopes that she would be capable of taking Audrey’s place. She proved…unworthy.

Standing unsteadily, Lastor moved along the wall clutching the bottle, making his way toward the windowless bathroom, avoiding the blocked portal of light. Locking the door and staunching the gap between the bottom of the bathroom door and the floor exhausted him, and he slumped over once it was done, his heart racing again. Scrabbling weakly across the floor for the bottle, he took a deep drink and exhaled shakily as the warm liquid crept down his throat. Curling up against the glow that remained, he fell into a fitful sleep, haunted by nightmares of memories.

Shadows Love: Chapter 8 / Lost

He was sitting on a bench in a playground. The sun beat down, but instead of the burning and headache the sun normally evoked, it bathed him in a comfortable warmth for the first time in memory. He closed his eyes and leaned back, basking in the sun’s rays; he had almost forgotten.

A touch at his shoulder. Lastor looked down, seeing Audrey laying on him comfortably, her head on his shoulder. Her eyes came up and she smiled, sliding her hand into his and lacing their fingers together as her eyes returned to the playground. Lastor’s followed.

A little girl stood atop the slide, apparently steeling herself. Shutting her eyes, she pushed herself down the chute, her mouth open in a squeal of delight. She landed on her feet smoothly and her eyes shone like twin stars as she beamed at them, the telltale crimson gleam in those eyes that so resembled Audrey’s barely noticeable. 

Lastor awoke with a start, his sheets soaked in sweat. His jaw was sore. He had obviously been clenching it while dreaming. So close… he grimaced, rubbing his jaw. Their last kiss was so long ago he didn’t remember it. How was he supposed to dream of it? 

Pushing himself to his feet, he went to the window, looking out over the darkened city with its thousands of burning lights.  He remembered, fresh amid the fog his recollections had often become, hunting with her one night, though it seemed like forever ago. They had been in the woods, stalking deer just for sport, having fed well of lowlife scum earlier. She had been tracking the animal through a thicket of trees, sticking to the shadows as it fed in a moonlit clearing, gray in the light. The deer had raised its head and Audrey had stopped, dead still amid the trees and shadow. After a cursory scan, the deer resumed its feeding. With a gleeful grin on her face, had Audrey turned from her target and grinned at Lastor. The angle of the moon fell into her eyes, igniting a tiny spark there which Lastor was sure he could have seen for miles. Now, fresh from the dream, staring into the glistening stars, it was like staring in to her eyes a thousand times over. The look on her face as she smiled at him in the moonlight would not leave his mind.

Out of habit, Lastor absentmindedly reached for the half empty bottle of brown liquid on the table before the mirror. His fingers knocked over a dirty glass which had been discharged from active duty after the first fifth had been consumed and he cursed before closing his hand around the bottle’s no longer comforting neck. He swallowed a mouthful, grimaced, and swallowed another. Reaching to a drawer in the table, he took out a half full pack of cigarettes and tweezed one out with a long nail. A match lit the hollows of his face for a brief moment, illuminating his sunken eyes.

Lastor opened up the window and leaned out, breathing the smoggy night sky in to his lungs along with the nicotine, relishing its coolness. He stared blankly at the skyline, at the jutting skyscrapers biting into the sky like teeth. Reaching out, searching…but as usual there was nothing there. Just a blank emptiness where Audrey used to be. Rage rose inside him, white hot and fast. Snatching the bottle up again, Lastor first drained it then shattered it against the windowsill, sending glass raining down on the street onto the heads of those passing by. Holding the bottle by the neck he stabbed the jagged edge at his arm and dragged it upward. Blood erupted from the cut, running down his fingers and dripping onto the floor. Lastor sighed as the endorphins flooded in as well as the fiery pain. 

The blood dripping from his fingertips began to slow. By morning there wouldn’t even be a scar, just a dull ache. But the pain was there, beneath the cells that were beginning to knit together slowly, microscopically. He focused on the pain, nurturing it, encouraging it, letting it fill the space occupied by Audrey’s eyes, the emotional pain finally giving way to a more present physical sensation. His eyes fell to the scarlet puddle soaking in amid the hundreds of stains in the cheap motel carpet, the lit cigarette he had dropped in his rage smoldering its legacy into the fibers until it was snuffed out by his foot. 

            Lastor looked at the moon. It was low in the sky, enough for it to be about ten o’clock. He cursed softly to himself as he pulled a shirt over his pale body and dragged his long black coat over his shoulder. His arm still throbbed, just enough to prevent his mind from focusing obsessively on anything else. Success.

Stepping to the window, Lastor climbed out onto the fire escape, dropping the last twenty feet or so to land soundlessly in the alley. A bum slept nearby, grunting in his sleep, a loaf of moldy bread and a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hands, oblivious to the glass from Lastor’s window which covered him. Lastor paused long enough to relieve the derelict of his beverage and set off down the alley, moving deeper in to the darkness, following the moon.       

            Hours later, Lastor felt nothing. He had sat in a seedy strip club so long that the bartender had told him to order from the bar, buy a lap dance, or get the fuck out. A bartender’s broken nose and some violence later, security had been summoned to come throw him out, only to be knocked hard against the wall. Now, having relieved several more homeless of their liquid comforts as well as an opium fiend of his fix, he was comfortably numb again, acting on instinct – hunting. Even his arm felt better.  

 

Shadow’s Love : Chapter 7 / Addiction

Lastor looked down at the girl, hesitantly approaching the man standing against a shadowy building. He had not counted on this. The man was evil, his black thoughts fairly radiating off him. Lastor had seen his eyes following the girl since she had turned the corner and the thoughts had been broadcast on a plain wavelength even some humans were tuned to. As she approached, Lastor could fairly smell the man’s arousal heating up. Lastor’s lip curled. This girl was his. He had scented her and he would have her. No pervert was going to usurp him.  

He watched as the exchange went on beneath him. The man’s barely concealed glee at her agreement to accompany him screamed joyfully beneath his carefully controlled facade. As he turned to start leading her away, Lastor saw a sinister grin playing at the corner of Joe’s mouth.

Joe’s ugly smile as he stroked her face, was rebuffed and pushed her to the wall practically gleamed in the night. Lastor had waited, just long enough to satisfy his curiosity. He knew Joe‘s plan, but the means to the end intrigued him. And besides, he rationalized, the girl needed to learn. Maybe now she wouldn’t be so quick to trust the next friendly face. But when Joe leaned in to kiss Lastor’s prey, he could not suffer the pervert’s existence any longer. 

Dropping down two stories, Lastor landed soundlessly behind Joe. He reached around Joe’s throat, arresting the latter’s attempt to kiss the girl. A little squawk escaped Joe‘s throat as tiny muscles in Lastor‘s fingers contracted, as he stabbed his nails into Joe’s throat and ripped it out, dropping the mass of flesh and tissue on the ground atop Joe’s body as he let forth a last gurgling wail. The blood smelled foul – tainted. Lastor could smell the AIDS virus. It was not a new acquisition; Joe had been infected for at least a year. Lastor wondered if he had even known.  

He turned his attention to the girl crouched on the ground, shrinking against the wall to avoid both the growing pool of Joe’s blood and Lastor. He was struck by how much prettier she was up close, even in a state of fear. 

“What is your name?”

She gulped, her terror almost palpable in the cool night air. “A-Audrey…” she managed to stammer out before her eyes rolled up and she slumped forward, her mouth agape, right into the pool of Joe’s blood. 

Lastor looked at her for a moment. He had not expected Joe’s intervention, nor his viral condition, and least of all her nosedive into a pool of infected blood. He had originally intended to merely play with the girl, feed from her, and leave her for dead. But now that she was very likely infected with an incurable disease, pity was speaking to him. It did not seem right that an innocent girl, guilty of nothing more than a misplaced trust in a stranger should be condemned to a fatal disease with such a negative stigma attached. 

Maybe as a vampire, she would be more interesting.

Audrey awoke the next night, stretching luxuriously. She looked across the bed at her lover. Lastor was awake, gazing at her through half-lidded eyes, idly toying with his fangs with a long nail. He grinned at her and ran the nail up her spine, causing her to shiver.

“Hungry?”

Brad was a skateboarder, and not entirely awful at it. He could hold his own in the pitched battles that took place in the skate park, but knew when to bow out. He was about to attempt a fakie big spin when he saw a fine piece of ass approaching. She was wearing a slinky black dress and a lot of makeup, which was an instant turn-on for him. He looked her up and down appraisingly as she approached and whistled as she passed by. “Hey babe, lookin’ fine.”

Instead of throwing him a dirty look or pretending not to hear and picking up her pace like most girls, she turned to look at him, staring straight into his eyes, and blew him a kiss, grinning. “Thank you,” she said coyly and continued walking.

Brad looked around at his friends, Jay gave him the thumbs up and Sam waved him on. “Go on man, hit that! She wants you!” Jake whooped, grinning as if he were the one getting laid. Brad grinned and dropped his skateboard, pushing off after the girl.

Before he knew it, he was rolling down a dingy alley, surrounded by trash and cardboard boxes. Not stopping to consider what such a pretty young girl would be doing there, he kicked his board up and called out, “Hey babe!”

She stopped, and slowly turned around, raising an eyebrow questioningly. “Yes?”

Brad smirked, confident in his charm. “Man, your ass is fine, I noticed as soon as I saw you.”

It happened in a blur. Suddenly the girl was on top of him, pinning him to the ground, the look on her face a mixture of revulsion, pity, anger, amusement, and… hunger? He only had time for a quickly muffled scream before her fangs sank into his throat and the world exploded in a spray of his own blood as Audrey jerked her head to the side, ripping his throat out.

 

Shadow’s Love : Chapter 5 – Torment

Waking the next night, Audrey’s eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the gloom much more than usual. As she took in the satin sheets and the dried blood caked on her body, her mind flashed back to memories of the night before. Memories of Joe, tearing her classmate’s throat out, and her first taste of blood. She sat up, running her tongue over her teeth to reaffirm the veracity of present circumstances. The sharp sting as her tongue found her fangs told her that she was wide awake. This had really happened. She smiled a demon’s smile.

The vampire [Audrey marveled that she still did not know his name] was no longer lying beside her. She sent her mind out, searching for him, focusing on his dark red glow almost instantly. Reassured that she had not been abandoned, she turned her attentions to an ornate wardrobe in the corner. Her clothes from the night no longer suited her.

Upon opening it, she received a shock. It was filled with gorgeous clothing forgotten by modern fashion from some lost era. There were corsets, dresses, skirts, gowns, gauntlets, assorted jewelry, and accessories. After an agony of choice, she settled on a leather corset, a mid-length skirt with artful tears up and down it, skin-tight black gauntlets, fishnet stockings, and tall black leather boots. She spent a while admiring the collection of jewelry before picking out a silver ring with a modest bloodred stone set into it that reminded her of the vampire’s aura. She selected a plain leather choker, and set it out along with her other clothes on the hangers set into the doors of the wardrobe, grabbing a black silk robe for modesty’s sake in her quest for the bathroom and closed the wardrobe door. 

Finding an amazing black marble bathroom just down the hall from the master bedroom, she slipped off her robe and climbed into the cavernous bathtub, turning the chrome fists to make hot and cold water pour from a demon’s mouth. As the tub filled, she lay back against a black pillow opposite the faucet, closing her eyes and breathing deeply as the warm water climbed up her body, submerging her slowly. As it neared the top of the tub, she raised a foot and curled it around each fist in turn, shutting the water off. Silence filled the marble bathroom, broken only by the sound of water lapping against the sides of the tub and sporadic dripping, echoing off the smooth marble and lulling her into a dreamlike state. 

She lay there, floating between awake and asleep for a while, before rousing from her stupor and pushing herself from the tub, the water running down her body. Watching the water drain, she saw it was tinged red from the blood on her body. Smiling a little to herself, she searched for a towel, finding a stack of thick black linens in a cupboard. Selecting one, she toweled herself dry and wrapped the robe about herself again, loosely knotting the cord before padding down the hallway and returning to the master bedroom. When she opened the door, she received a shock.

Tied to the bed wearing nothing but his boxers was her ex-boyfriend Aaron, gagged and blindfolded, his shaking visible from the doorway. The vampire was leaning over the binding holding Aaron’s left foot, securing him solidly to the bed frame. At the sound of her opening the door, he turned, a devilish look on his face. “Surprise, darling,” he said, gesturing dramatically towards her prostrate ex.

Audrey feigned a look of girlish excitement. “My slimy worthless two-faced ex-boyfriend? You shouldn’t have!” She skipped across and kissed him hard on the mouth. 

At the sound of Audrey’s voice, Aaron started, jerking against his bonds, yelling through his gag. The vampire reached over and hit Aaron across the face. “Shut up.” Aaron went silent, shaking uncontrollably.

“No, no… let’s hear what he has to say,” Audrey said wickedly, kneeling on the bed beside Aaron’s head and pulling the gag from his mouth, untying the blindfold as well. 

Aaron blinked hard as the blindfold came away, shaking his head and pulling at his hands in an effort to rub his eyes. “Audrey!” he gasped as she came into focus. “Jesus, Audrey get me out of here! What are you doing here? If he hurt you, I’ll-“

She slapped him hard and leaning in close to her ex’s red sweaty face, she purred in his ear, “You’ll what, darling? What will you do to him? Are you gonna “kick his ass” for me?” The vampire snickered. Audrey smiled at him before caressing Aaron’s ear with her tongue and nipping. “I would love to see you try.”

She stood back up and put an arm around the vampire’s waist, leaning up against him and looking at Aaron thoughtfully. “What are your plans for this worm?”

The vampire put an arm around her, feeling no clothing under her silk robe. “I have none. He’s your surprise, you can play with him or dispose of him. Whatever you wish.”

Ignoring Aaron’s muffled squeak of protest, Audrey looked up at the vampire questioningly. “How did you know?”

“Your mind is an open book to me. Last night while you slept, I read. I can only imagine the rage you feel when faced with someone like this. Someone who does not treat you with any respect and takes you for granted. I thought you deserved to treat him for a change.” He smiled. “To… reciprocate.”

Audrey pulled away from him and went to sit on the bed beside her hapless ex, stroking his cheek with the back of a hand, smiling placidly at him. “Aaron, Aaron…I never thought I would ever see you again. I must confess, the thought wasn’t all bad. But I’m glad we have this time together now.”

Shadow’s Love – Chapter 4 – Second Blood

“Very good. But when killing in society, you must not leave it this way, with two such telling marks on her neck. In a world filled with skepticism, it is not a great danger, but all it takes is one person to see them for what they are to bring us to an end. Dracula had the same problem.”

Audrey giggled. “What do I do?”

Amy had raised herself up on one elbow, stretching her other hand up to press it against her neck in a pathetic effort to stop what blood remained from flowing onto the carpet. “H..help…” she choked out.

The taller figure turned to her and his face twisted into a nightmarish smile. “You must tear out the throat.”

Amy felt adrenaline shoot through her and began trying to scrabble away from them, her mind, under duress as it was, understandably forgetting they were on the third floor and there was nowhere to go. The figure that was Audrey knelt beside her and she once again felt Audrey’s fangs pierce her throat. As Audrey jerked her head to the side, tearing Amy’s throat out, her neck exploded in a fiery pain that quickly ebbed as the dark circles claimed her, and she slipped into death. 

When news of her demise was reported, many of the teachers in the betting pool who had put money on Amy sat with their newspaper open, holding their coffee, re-reading it first with the secondary interest you feel when your scanning eyes recognize a name. Then as coffee cups dropped their eyes raked the paragraph, finally taking in the details.

Audrey stood and wiped her hand across her mouth licking at the blood covering her fingers. She felt sated, satisfied, but most of all she felt alive. Ironic; now that she was the furthest from life she had ever been she finally felt alive. She looked at the vampire and saw a look of satisfaction on his face. 

“Did you know her?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Did I know her name, had I ever seen her before? Yes. But I didn’t know her. I never wanted to. She was a sad girl whose life was empty but for academic achievements. She thought that because she could pass a class that she was better than everybody else.” Audrey started laughing. “But this isn’t about her.” Audrey smiled, her mind reaching back over her high school career over the many educators she had endured. The teacher’s pool was no secret, and their favorite was likewise well known to the student body. Audrey knew there was more than one educator who would be in serious financial trouble from what she had done, and the ability to matter was physically exhilarating. 

The vampire said nothing but looked at her. She could feel him looking not at her, but inside her, through her, at her soul. 

“Anything interesting?” she inquired sardonically.

He stepped toward her. “Very,” he said and kissed her. His passion ignited hers and she kissed him back fiercely, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close, her tongue rubbing against his canines as his hands buried themselves in her hair. He broke the kiss and pulled her head to the side, exposing her neck to his hunger. He sank his fangs into her, sucking Amy’s blood from Audrey’s veins. She moaned and tilted her head even further around until she found his neck right in front of her. Acting on a whim, she bit. Her fangs drove into his neck, sucking his blood as he drew hers. She could taste her own blood in his, she could taste Amy’s, and a fiery taste she recalled as his own blood. This only inflamed her desire for him and she bit harder, sinking her fangs in deeper. 

Suddenly they heard a scream. Breaking off their lustful embrace, their heads whipped around to see Amy’s mother standing at the door, her hands over her face, pure terror in her eyes. The phone she had been holding with white knuckles was on the floor where she had apparently dropped it after peering around the corner and seeing the two creatures feeding off each other over her daughter’s torn and bloody body. 

Audrey was frozen, but the vampire uttered an oath. Disengaging himself from Audrey, he threw himself at the petrified mother, plunging his fangs into her throat and drinking from her only briefly before tearing out her throat and dropping her to the ground to bleed out all over the carpet. On the phone, the voice was assuring her that units had begun to roll. He wiped his mouth and looked at Audrey.

“It is time to be gone before those idiotic policemen show up to make things difficult. Come.” He sprang to the window and before Audrey could utter a word of protest, had fallen from sight. She rushed to the sill, looking down, and saw him settling lightly to the ground. 

Audrey leapt to the windowsill. Her stomach churned at the sight of the drop. The vampire had so far been right about everything else, so closing her eyes and hoping with every fiber that she would know what to do, she pushed herself from the window. Instead of the rushing sound accompanied by the sensation usually associated with falling, she felt a gentle descending movement and felt herself touch down softly on the ground. She looked with wonder at the vampire, who gestured and set off at a lope through the alleys behind Amy’s house as the screaming sirens grew louder.

Back at the mansion, Audrey understood to be the vampire’s home, wrapped in his embrace, she could see that her life had finally taken a turn for the better. No longer was she just weird little Audrey Spencer. She was someone to be respected now.

Shadow’s Love : Chapter 2 – Safe in the Darkness

She awoke hours later to silence. Not even distant sirens penetrated the quiet. She tried to sit up and found her arms had been tied over her head, to what felt like a bedpost. Her heart sank. She tried to blink and found she could not. The room was not completely dark, her eyes had been obscured by a blindfold. She began struggling, pulling at the bindings holding her arms above her head in a frantic effort to escape.

“Stop.”

She froze. The voice had come from beside the bed. It was not Joe’s voice though, from which she drew small comfort. “Wh-what are you going to do to me? Please don’t hurt me…”

He laughed, a sound less like mirth than she had ever heard. “How much you hurt depends entirely upon you. If I take this blindfold off, are you going to be good?”

Audrey nodded. She couldn’t think of a time she had wanted to be well more than now. She heard him lean forward and felt the blindfold slip off. Opening her eyes, she saw she was in a room with a four-poster bed and no windows, lit only by two black candles at the head of the bed. She squinted at the shape standing beside her, straining to make him out from the gloom. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the face from earlier, the pale face with sunken eyes, high cheekbones, and the same crimson light shining in the eyes. 

He seated himself beside her and she smelled something like earth, but a coppery metallic smell too. It ignited a spark in her brain that she couldn’t place exactly. 

“I want your blood,” he intoned, and her eyes snapped open. “One way or another, I’m going to get it. You can fight and have it hurt worse than you can imagine, and you will die. Or…” His hand slid down her cheek and caressed her neck. “…you can enjoy it.” He brought his mouth to her neck, scraping long canines against the soft white skin of her throat. She gasped a little and flinched, her autonomic nervous system reflexively trying to pull away. Like a snake, he struck, burying his fangs deep into her neck. She screamed, softly; it was as if her voice had been cut in half by his fangs. She thrashed instinctively about, whatever reservations she had giving full voice to their objections. As the sound of her scream died away, her eyes caught his, and calm struck her – this was not an out-of-control monster. The eyes she looked into were as placid and devoid of evil as she had ever seen. 

She tilted her head, exposing more to him, her lips parted and eyes shut in an expression of ecstasy as the pain completely vanished.  She could feel the blood rushing through her body toward the gash in her neck and trickling out of her. She smelled copper again, but stronger, and she knew it was her own blood. It excited her to no end and she moaned, vibrating his fangs in her neck.

He withdrew them from her, catching a drop of the blood trickling from the wound with a long finger, and brought it to her mouth. Her red tongue flicked out and licked it off his finger. Her eyes opened weakly, devoid of the white spark characteristic of a living person’s eyes. They rolled back and her eyelids fluttered closed. She was dead, but not yet. 

Audrey felt so weak and dizzy, and couldn’t stand to keep her eyes open. She knew if she slept now, she would never awaken, but honestly didn’t care. If she died now, at least she would die happy. She heard the vampire hiss and she felt something warm dripping on her lips. Audrey stuck out her tongue and for the first time, tasted the copper taste of blood, blood that had not come from her father striking her or a pulled tooth. Blood not her own. Her eyes crawled minutely open. He was holding his slit wrist to her mouth, inviting her to drink his blood. 

Upon seeing it there, so close, she felt as though an inner demon had possessed her. The ties holding her wrists to the bed were shredded as she grabbed his arm and pulled it to her mouth, fastening it around the dripping gash in his wrist and sucking the blood from it as if her life depended on it. She could feel her body gaining strength, but not the way it used to feel. She was feeling…invincible. Like she could go anywhere, do anything, and nobody could stop her. But she needed more. She kept feeding, ravenously sucking the blood from his arm until he pulled it away from her, breathing heavily, nursing his wrist.

“That’s enough for now, young one,” he said and licked his wrist.

Audrey was not listening. She was staring, transfixed at herself in a mirror on the wall. Her eyes had lost their dull flatness and now had a crimson shine in their depths when the light reflected just right. Also, she was noticing differences in the way things looked, and sounded, and…she could smell. It was as if all her five senses had been enhanced, and she seemed to have gained more. 

His eyes were on her, and she knew he was sizing her up. “How do you feel, Audrey?”

She ran her tongue across her lips, letting out a little gasp as her new fangs nipped her tongue. Tentatively she reached a finger into her mouth and ran it along her elongated canines. A wicked look came into her eyes and she looked at the vampire. “I want more.”

Shadow’s Love : Chapter One ~ Jesse Orr

He tilted his head back and tasted the air. Long used to the stench of the city, he no longer gagged at the various assaults on his senses but was able to distinguish just what he wanted. He had found fear to taste almost as sweet as guilt, and when combined with the innocence he craved tonight, it was almost irresistible. Pulling his trench coat tighter about himself, he set off in the direction of the new blood, tasting the air occasionally, always staying in the shadows.

Audrey was only 20, but she had seen her share of pain. She was now wandering around aimlessly downtown late at night and had already escaped from several would-be johns and was seriously considering going back home to tolerate her parents. She wished someone somewhere would take a chance on one of her hundreds of job applications and hire her, enabling her to perhaps escape her parents’ oppressive rule once and for all. But her poverty continued, the world indifferent to her plight.

She tentatively approached a figure standing alone against a building, sizing him up, ready to run if he made any sudden moves. But he hardly seemed to notice her. His eyes momentarily flicked towards her, but if not for that she would have thought he was oblivious to her existence. He was tall and handsome and looked as though he could work in a bank as easily as lean against a shadowy building. She decided to chance it.

     “Excuse me?”

His eyes returned to her and an eyebrow raised questioningly.

     “Er…I was wondering if you could tell me…where the nearest bus stop is?”

He closed his eyes for a second as if he was thinking. Then he smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I’m hell with directions. I could take you?”

He stepped toward her and she flinched, instinctively stepping back. His face showed understanding. “You don’t trust me. If you like, you can follow me so you can run if I prove untrustworthy.” He grinned ruefully.

She considered his offer torn; he would be hard pressed to grab her if she was following behind him, as quick as she was.

     “All right,” she said. “But don’t try anything funny or I’ll scream,” she warned. 

He nodded and set off, calling over his shoulder, “I’m Joe, what’s your name?”

     “Audrey,” she said, letting him get a good lead before falling in behind him. 

     “It’s nice to meet you, Audrey,” Joe said. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing here at this time of night?”

     “I had a fight with…my boyfriend,” she said with a flash of inspiration. Maybe if he thought people were waiting for her, he wouldn’t try            anything.  “I ran off, but he’ll be worried if I don’t come back.”

They continued like this for a while. Joe led, asking questions and turning appropriate corners. Audrey answered his questions gratefully, pouring out her heart, glad to find someone willing to listen to her problems. 

     “So what did you get into a fight with your boyfriend about?”

     “Oh…um…we…I…he said…” she scrabbled for an answer, not noticing the left they took. “He wanted me to sleep with him!” she blurted,                grabbing a cliché from sex ed. “But when I was running away, he said he was kidding…” her voice trailed off. “Where are we?” They had taken several more turns and ended up in front of a dingy warehouse at the end of a cul-de-sac and she honestly had no idea how they had gotten there. Fear grabbed at her. 

     “He wanted you to sleep with him? You should have realized,” Joe turned around, an ugly leer etched on his once handsome features, “boys            only want one thing.”  

     “What are we doing here?” Audrey asked, her mouth dry. Joe began walking toward her. She retreated until she found she had been strategically positioned against a wall and had nowhere to go. 

     “I have a business opportunity for you, young lady.” He reached up and stroked her cheek. She slapped his hand away and his other came up, pinning her against the wall by her throat. “In that warehouse is several thousand dollars worth of video cameras, lighting, and several of my friends who have been dying for a little beauty like you to test them on.” His grin grew uglier. “Get the picture?”

     She struggled against his hand, trying to scream with what little air she could draw into her lungs.

     “No!”

     “I bet you wish you’d fucked your boyfriend now, don’t you?” he said and tried to kiss her but her boot connected with his shin and he released her with a grunt of pain. With a furious look on his face, he bashed her head into the wall, stunning her. As sparkles overwhelmed her vision, she dimly made out his face coming through the darkness to kiss her again.

Before she could summon the strength to fight, his eyes bulged in surprise as fingers curled around the back of his neck. Another hand snaked around the front, setting its nails into Joe’s throat and tightening. The sharp nails stabbed into his flesh as he screamed, a gurgling wail as his throat was torn out and dropped to the ground. Audrey’s heart sank as the shapeless mass behind Joe dropped the lifeless pornographer’s body to the ground and looked up and directly into her eyes.

He was very tall, his face was as pale as a sheet of paper. Long dark hair framed his high cheekbones and sunken eyes in shadow. Almost before this all registered, he was standing in front of her, nearly close enough to share her breath, staring deep into her eyes. She cowered against the dirty wall, trying to make herself as small as possible.

     “What is your name?” said his voice as if from a distance as Audrey’s world grew darker.

     “A..Audrey…” she whispered. Then the light vanished as the world completely faded away and the darkness claimed her.

 

Gypsy Mob : Episode 13/ A Cocktail for Tony

Bianca was wrapped in a heavy mass, her eyes staring without seeing over a heaving shoulder. Sounds filtered into her brain, the sounds of sobbing and meaningless words. Time and time again, she heard her name, first in a woman’s voice, over and over. Then, a man’s voice, whispering her name in a breathy, disbelieving way. The voices seemed to ring a bell, but she could not attach any importance to them. She drifted off into the darkness, neither knowing nor caring if she would ever come out of it, aware only that she had made it home. Not that it mattered.

When her eyes next opened, she was lying in a soft bed and a cool cloth was bathing her face. Remembering the last time she was laying on a bed and what happened, she snapped fully awake, her heart hammering. The cloth jerked away from her face as the shadowy figure sitting beside her gave a start. Bianca began scrabbling at the sides of the bed, forgetting she had only one hand with which to grip. She bumped the wall beside the bed and white-hot fire shot up her arm from where her hand had lived for her whole life. She gave a little scream and moaned as cruel electricity seemed to sizzle up and down her arm.

There were words coming through the pain. She heard her name again in that female voice that rang a bell, louder this time.

“Bianca, Bianca, shh…you’re home…you’re safe…”

Home. She seemed to recall having made it back there before the world went black. This bed was far too soft to be the one at the Gypsy encampment. There had been no cool cloth bathing her forehead there; the only bathing of any sort she had experienced in that tent had been between “clients” and she had done it to herself, not paying any particular attention to anything above the waist. The smell was different here. Her brain tried to register it and slowly it leaked through to her consciousness.

The smell was her.

Her things, her room, her house, her mother.

Home.

“Mommy!” Bianca screamed, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. “Mommy, mommy, mommy…” Her stump bumped into her mother’s back, leaving a red stain. Her cries of pain mingled with her tears of happiness and relief.

Lucia wrapped her arms around her daughter, holding her close, tears of her own coursing down her cheeks. She stroked the bedraggled hair as the girl clutched at her, seeming to never let her go.

“Hush now, Bi,” she said, her voice shaking. “You’re home now, you’re safe…shhh…”

Over her crooning, she could hear the approach of Giletti’s vehicle as it turned down the drive and approached the house. The engine sound died and a car door slammed. From down the hallway, she heard the sound of the front door banging open. Bianca heard it too and froze against her mother, silent tears streaming down her face as she shook with the effort of containing her sobs.

“It’s all right, Bi,” Lucia said, attempting to disentangle her daughter. “It’s just your father.”

Bianca’s eyes were still wide as she looked up at her mother. “I don’t think it’s him anymore…” she managed to choke out.

Footsteps sounded down the hallway, steady and purposeful. Lucia told herself she was being silly, that Bianca’s hysteria had just infected her. Why would she be feeling this sense of dread at the sound of her husband’s approach?

The footsteps stopped at Bianca’s door. There was a moment of silence where all that could be heard was the breathing in the bedroom, Bianca’s short shaky gasps and Lucia’s, growing more uneasy. Then the door crashed open.

The silhouette of Don Giletti framed in the doorway with a machine gun in his arms froze them both for only half a second. Lucia had been married to the Don long enough to be able to read the look in his eyes. It galvanized her to her feet, just as the barrel of the gun swung around and began to fire.

The bullets ripped into Lucia’s body, spinning her around as the muzzle blasts lit up the dark room in a hellish strobe. Giletti’s face was illuminated, its blankness terrifying Bianca as much as the sight of her mother being torn to pieces by automatic weapon fire. There was nothing of the man who had roared with laughter as he carried her around the mansion piggyback as a child. This man had dead eyes, showing no emotion as he continued to pump rounds into the shredded piece of meat that had once been his wife. Bianca cowered in the corner of the bed farthest from the door, attempting to make herself as small as possible, her ears ringing from the gunfire, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Suddenly, it stopped. Her belabored eardrums could barely make out the sound of a metallic clicking coming from the gun her father held. Opening one eye the barest amount, she saw him staring blankly at what used to be her mother. Gunsmoke filled the room. His finger tightened again on the trigger, creating that clicking sound. Mercifully, the gun was empty. It clattered to the floor, coming to rest with the muzzle facing Lucia’s obliterated face.

Oh, mommy!

Giletti shifted his dead gaze to his daughter cowering on the bed, seeming to regard her thoughtfully. Her lips moved, producing a tiny squeak that her ears could scarcely register.

“Daddy, please…”

He unbuttoned his sport coat and reached inside, toward his left armpit. Bianca had seen her daddy around the mansion enough times in just his shirtsleeves to know what lived under his left arm in a shoulder holster. She began to push with her legs, trying to get farther away from him as her voice mewled protestations. “Daddy, no, please no daddy…”

Giletti unfastened the holster snap and pulled out his handgun.

“No, Daddy, don’t…”

He clicked the safety off and racked the slide.

“Daddy, please…”

He leveled it at Bianca’s face.

“Daddy PLEASE!” she screamed.

There was a moment where she thought she had gotten through to him.

Oh, thank you, God, thank you for—

Then there was one more explosion, and all that Bianca Giletti had ever been or hoped to be was splattered across the wall above her bed.

Tony the Nose drove up to the mansion’s driveway and parked beside the boss’s car. Its door was hanging open and it was parked at an angle at odds with the neat parking job usually done. Tony regarded this as well as the keys hanging in the ignition for a moment before getting out and walking to the front door, which was ajar. His big feet made the tiniest of crunches on the gravel drive, belying his massive bulk. Reaching the doorway, he smelled the acrid stink of gunsmoke. Pulling out his own sidearm, he held it down by his thigh, pointed at the ground, his finger on the trigger. Entering the mansion, he hugged the wall as he made his way silently down the hallway toward the room Bianca occupied. There were feet protruding from the doorway, clad in shoes favored by the boss. They were still, their toes facing down. Their owner was lying face down in the doorway, his upper half inside the room. Gunsmoke drifted lazily out of the room. Tony holstered his weapon and walked up to the doorway, no longer making any effort to conceal his approach. It didn’t matter anymore.

Bianca was leaning against the wall, what remained of her head cocked forward, her chin on her chest, her skull an open, empty bowl, still dripping. The wall behind her was riddled with bullet holes and chunky red and grayish-white material was oozing down the wall from a large splash mark. Tony’s eyes traveled slowly from this grisly sight to the body on the ground in front of the bed which bore only a slight resemblance to the boss’s wife. A large pool of blood was forming around her, and Tony was glad he wouldn’t have to bother cleaning that one up. Blood soaking into a carpet was a bitch. The third figure in the room was the boss, his head blown open on one side, a spray of brain matter coating the wall to his left, his gun still clenched in his hand.

Tony looked at the sad tableau for a few moments before turning and going down the hall to the boss’s study. Opening the door, he went to the safe and punched in the code on its keypad. Don Giletti would have been furious if he knew that Tony was aware of the safe’s combination, but Don Giletti would not be feeling any way about anything, ever again. Twisting the handle, Tony opened the safe and, pushing aside the box of fine cigars Giletti favored, began pocketing the stacks of cash. He filled all the pockets in his suit coat and pants pockets with bundles of bills, indulging in only a moment’s regret that he didn’t have larger pockets to accommodate more of them. That was all right though; his years of unwavering loyalty to the Giletti family had made him a very rich man. This was just a bonus.

Turning from the safe, he picked up the cigar Giletti had sitting on his desk. Producing a lighter, he set the tip aflame before the tobacco began to smolder gently, its scent mixing with the gunsmoke that had begun to filter through the house in a very pleasant manner. Tony thought that if they could manufacture a cigar that smelled like that, he would actually start smoking them. As it was, he puffed just long enough to ensure the ember was well lit and would not go out before placing it carefully on the windowsill so the ember was touching the gauzy curtains Lucia Giletti had selected for all the rooms in the mansion. They began to smolder, their own smoke adding to the haze and making the smell much less pleasant. That was all right though; he wouldn’t be here much longer.

Going to his own quarters, he gathered what few items of value he possessed and deposited them in a leather valise. Pulling one of the curtains down from the windows, he ripped a long shred off of it. Opening a bottle of the rum he favored, he stuffed the shred of curtain into its neck. Pulling a few inches out of the bottle, he stepped back into the hallway. The flames had caught in the curtains and he could hear the crackle and roar of a bonfire coming from the boss’s study. Holding his breath, Tony stepped into the office for the last time, just long enough to touch the wick of the Molotov cocktail he had made to one of the flames licking its way eagerly around the walls of the office.

Holding the flaming bottle away from his face, he strode down the hallway towards the main door, hurtling it into Bianca’s room with an almost contemptuous flick of his wrist. The bottle exploded against the far wall, sending flaming liquid splattering all over the room.

Immediately the flames took hold of the fabric in the room. Wall hangings, curtains, bedding and clothing caught fire as though they had been waiting for the opportunity. With the fire in the office now roaring and advancing down the hallway, Tony retreated to the front door, locking it behind him as he slammed it. Smoke belched out of the windows as he tossed the valise into what was now his car. Turning the key and dropping the shift lever into drive, he paused for just a moment, looking at the mansion one last time. He let out what might have been a sigh.

Squealing the car around in a circle, he pointed its nose up the driveway. Toward the future.

Gypsy Mob :Episode 12/ Conflagration

Zara had left the Italian bitch in her tent, securely tied, only to step outside the tent to see a conflagration in progress. Wide-eyed, she watched flames lick up the base of the nearest tent until it was engulfed in flames, a process which took only seconds. For a moment, she was paralyzed, watching her family’s property go up in smoke. Only for a moment, though, then her paralysis broke and she looked around to see the rest of her clan reacting similarly. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” she screamed, her hoarse voice scaling down a few notches as her vocal cords ruptured further. “PUT THEM OUT!”

Galvanized into action by her cries, the surrounding Gypsies scattered, running for water, for dirt, for anything they could think of. Such a thing had never been visited upon their camp, and they were largely running in circles in a blind panic. One of the huge Gypsies regained his head first and began organizing a bucket line to the rusty pump situated in the field nearby where they had pitched their tents. By then, the flames had reached high enough on most tents that any firefighting activities were largely symbolic. 

It was as the first few buckets were thrown on the fires that the explosions ripped through the night, sounding to Zara like a string of firecrackers on steroids, as though the crackers had been replaced by dynamite and the fuses shortened to nothing. Indeed, that is what she thought was occurring until she saw some of her clan jerk upright in mid-run and fall to the ground, red mist spraying from multiple wounds in their bodies.  

“GET DOWN!” she bellowed, blood spraying from her throat as she lapsed into a bout of coughing which brought her to her knees just as a hail of bullets passed over her. One of the Gypsies right in front of her was not so lucky, blood and brain matter from his ruptured skull splattering all over her. The rest of her clan hit the ground as bullets whizzed overhead. 

“Keep going!” she roared between coughs as the bullets ceased for the moment, waving her arm in the direction of the pump. “Keep buckets going or we are doomed!” Her throat felt as though it were on fire as well but she continued screaming. “The buckets! Now! NOW!!”

The silhouettes of the clan began creeping from their prone positions, to the pump and back toward the fires, struggling to keep a low profile while carrying buckets of water. Over the next few minutes, the lack of gunfire made some of them raise their heads and stop crouching as they scurried to and fro, before machine gunfire lit up the night, this time coming from the middle of the camp. Many of the Gypsies dropped to the ground, riddled with bullets, but this time Zara could see the source of the chaos. A large man with a huge gun strode up the midway, raking everything that moved with fire, the explosions from the barrel lighting up the night and providing her a clear target. 

With rage burning in her, Zara waited until the next pause in fire before striding into the midway, her hand raised in the direction of the gunman. He was faced away from her, the muzzle of his huge gun turned to one side as he hunted for more targets. 

“PIG!” she screamed. As he began turning in her direction, she raised a ragged fingernail to her arm and slashed it open, blood dripping to the dirt as she locked eyes with him, bringing him to a halt. Speaking in ancient Rom, she spoke words she had long known but never said, words that she had been warned never to speak, words she had feared but always longed to recite. The words which would turn a man’s rage and hatred inward and destroy himself. 

The gunman’s eyes grew glassy and the barrel of his gun dropped toward the ground, his eyes never leaving hers. She finished speaking and waved her bloody arm, red flecks flying in his direction. Without another word or shot fired, the gunman turned and retreated down the midway, his steps purposeful, machine gun held at his side, facing down. As he left, the energy went out of her and she crumpled to the ground, breathing heavily as her family’s tents burned around her. 

Tony the Nose had worked his way around the outskirts of the Gypsy camp, setting fire to the tents doused by the Giletti brothers and spreading gasoline to those they had not yet reached by the time the gunfire began. Recognizing the sound of the light machine gun, he could tell that Don Giletti had at last freed the weapon from its mount in the mansion’s gun room and had come for the Gypsies. Falling to the ground, Tony worked his way outside of the gun’s radius of fire, outside the tents that were being shredded by the gun’s bullets. The screams and constant fire did not bother him in the slightest. He had brought about far worse in his time as the Don’s enforcer. 

When the gunfire ceased, Tony waited until he was sure that the gun had gone silent. From his prone position, he could see the bulky figure with the gun walking slowly out of the Gypsy’s camp, back to the vehicle Tony had spent countless hours maintaining and upgrading at the Don’s request. When the silhouette had rejoined the vehicle and sped away, Tony regained his feet, listening to the cries from within the Gypsy camp as he walked toward the nearest tent that had been doused with gasoline and had not yet caught fire. Pulling a lighter from his pocket, he scratched the flint. Flame leaped to the mouth of the lighter and he held it to the base of the tent. The flame licked for a second before igniting the gasoline fumes and licking around the tent with startling speed. Not hesitating, Tony moved to the next tent, and the next, circling the camp until all the tents were once more ablaze. What little progress the Gypsies had made fighting the fires the Gilettis had set earlier was immediately eclipsed. Occupied as they were by their wounded and the carnage visited upon them by Don Giletti’s lesser henchmen, these new flames had surrounded them and were burning inward toward the center of the camp before its inhabitants were able to do more than register their existence. 

From beneath his tuxedo coat, Tony produced an enormous weapon, capable of raining destruction paralleled by the machine gun brought by the Don. Unlike the Don, Tony did not walk down the center of the midway, presenting a clear target. He moved around the flaming tents, waiting for a clean shot at the Gypsies he could see silhouetted by the flames. A quick burst of extremely accurate fire sent the nearest knot of Gypsies to the ground, screaming. By the time any of the survivors reached the corpses and began looking for the source of the shots, Tony had already moved halfway around the circumference of the camp and was dealing death to the newest targets which presented themselves. 

He continued in this fashion until he had circled the burning camp twice without spying anything alive at which to shoot. Following Don Giletti’s footsteps, he strode up the remains of the midway, kicking aside bodies that stood in his way until he reached what had once been the Pleasure Tent. All around him, flames reached high into the sky, licking at the stars as the tents burned to the ground. There he found Zara, her throat ruptured by one of his bullets, attempting to staunch the flow of blood as she painfully pushed herself away from his approach. 

She tried to speak, raising the hand which was not pressed to her throat as blood poured from her open mouth. “You…from…hell,” she rasped, her once light voice now reduced to a liquid gargle.

Tony raised a mammoth foot and kicked her in the head, knocking her to the ground. Before she could stir again, the barrel of his weapon had obliterated her skull in a spray of blood and brain. 

Wiping the matter from his face, Tony strode from the camp, his skin stinging from the heat. As he stood by his vehicle and surveyed the camp, he could not see anything that was not aflame. Pulling another gas can from the trunk of the car, he cracked the vent and the nozzle before spinning like a shot-putter and throwing the can into the center of the conflagration. Upon hitting the ground, gas sprayed in all directions, further enraging the flames which had already taken hold. A miniature mushroom cloud rose from the impact point, the flames eagerly spreading to nearby tents and working their way outward, helped by the night’s breeze.

Without another look, Tony seated himself behind the wheel of his car and drove away from the burning Gypsy camp, headed for the Giletti mansion. 

Gypsy Mob : Episode 10 / Homecoming

How long she walked, she could not tell. Cradling what was left of her arm, she staggered onward, the blood seeping from her stump slowly turning the rags of her remaining clothing red. The stars shone brightly overhead, twinkling with apathy at her plight. At one point the sky lit up as fragments of disintegrating spacecraft streaked overhead. She did not notice but continued onward, her subconscious mind directing her. 

When she finally beheld the lights of the mansion in which she had lived all her life, she stopped, swaying, gazing stupidly at it, her mind struggling to comprehend what she was seeing. Gradually, it dawned on her that it was home. She had made it. She was safe. 

Willing her limbs to continue moving, she fixed her eyes on the lights surrounding the porch and the walkway leading up to the front door. They did not seem to grow closer, but finally, she could see she was making progress in their direction. It felt as though she were on a treadmill, the road moving beneath her as she walked in place, leaving the mansion as far away as ever, gaining only one step every hour or two. She could do nothing more than continue, for she knew if she stopped, she would not start again. She would die here. 

At long last, somehow, the front door appeared before her. She stared at the doorknob for a few moments before reaching up with her bloody hand to twist the knob. It moved a fractional amount before stopping firmly. She was locked out. All she had learned about how to sneak in and out of the house without anybody knowing had been blasted from her mind and all she could do was stand there stupidly for several minutes before it occurred to her to press the doorbell. 

From within the house, she could hear a buzzing. Some part of her brain registered it as the sound of someone at the door to her house and that someone should answer it, before realizing it was her. She was making the noise by pressing the button. This cycle of realization repeated as she stood there, her finger pressed to the doorbell, eyes fixed on the button. Someone’s at the door, she thought. Someone’s at the door. Someone’s at…

The door opened. 

The woman who opened it was very familiar. It seemed she had seen the woman before, many times, but she could not think where. Her mind already stretched to the breaking point, grappled for the answer. It was her… her…

Her what?

“BIANCA!” Lucia screamed, her jaw dropping and involuntarily stepping backward away from the filthy bloody figure that her daughter had become. 

Mother. 

The word came to Bianca’s mind just as it gave up and she sank to the ground, unconscious. 

“BIANCA!” Lucia’s shriek cut through the mansion. Giletti, who had been dozing behind his desk with a lit cigar, came awake like a tiger, going in all directions at once before he got his bearings. His wife’s second shriek came down the mansion’s hallway into his office as cleanly as a telegram and he roused his bulk from the chair, dropping his cigar in the ashtray and reflexively grabbing the pistol he kept beneath his desk. Lurching to the door, he threw it open and lumbered down the hallway as rapidly as he could. Already he could see his wife kneeling on the floor, cradling a bundle of filthy rags to her. As Giletti approached, the bundle of rags took shape and formed itself into a person. As he grew closer still, they became—

“Bianca,” Giletti whispered, growing closer. “What—”

His voice died in his throat as his eyes looked over what had just days ago been his spunky, vivacious daughter. They lingered at her face which had been coated in blood and dirt, her hair matted almost beyond recognition. They traveled down the bloody rags swaddling her until they stopped and fixated at where her hand had been. 

Lucia’s wailing as she held Bianca to her barely reached Giletti’s ears. All he heard was the rush of blood running to his head. He had lost henchmen aplenty in his time as the head of the Giletti family. But his daughter used and mutilated as she was, he could not comprehend. 

Turning, Giletti strode back to his office, the cries of his wife ringing in his ears. Booting the door open, he went to the west wall, which was made up of a massive bookshelf. Pulling a large green tome off the shelf, he threw it into a corner with a burst of rage and waited, breathing heavily, as the heavy wall of books swung slowly outward. Behind the bookshelf was a small room, its walls of pegboard, adorned with guns of every size, shape, and caliber. Giletti stepped into the room and reached up high for the weapon he had never used, the weapon he had always wanted to use and had always hoped never to use. There had never been a better time though, and as he pulled the heavy machine gun from its pegs and cradled it in his arms, he could almost hear the screams of the Gypsies as he worked the action. 

From a locker on the sidewall, he pulled a massive belt of ammunition, throwing it over his shoulder. Weighted by the heavy gun, he staggered down the hallway, past his unconscious daughter and wailing wife. Throwing the door open, he made his way to his primary vehicle, a supercharged Jaguar with over 200 horses under the hood. Dropping the ponderous gun on the passenger seat, he slammed the door and rounded the hood, throwing his bulk into the driver’s seat. Twisting the key in the ignition, the horses screamed to life. Without giving them an opportunity to warm up, he threw the car into gear and its engine roared as he floored the accelerator, peeling out of his driveway for the Gypsy camp. 

The glow from the Gypsy’s encampment reached high into the sky and Giletti saw it long before he arrived. Though he had not been informed of the exact plans of his minions, he knew it at once for what it was, having ordered the burning of numerous rivals in his past. As he screeched to a stop in the parking lot, deserted but for the empty cars of his henchmen, he was awarded a grim satisfaction as he saw many of the tents in the encampment were ablaze with flames reaching for the sky, long fingers stretching for the stars. 

Shutting off the engine, Giletti heaved his ponderance from the driver’s seat, pulling from the passenger’s seat the heavy machine gun and ammunition belt which he slung over his shoulder in imitation of the gunners in the war movies he watched regularly. He could smell the stench of gasoline and burning canvas, sweet in his nostrils as he moved to the outskirts of the camp. Squinting past the bright orange light of the flames, he could see dark silhouettes darting between the tents as the Gypsies fought the fire which had descended upon them. Situating himself for maximum visibility on a hill surrounding the tents, Giletti opened fire. 

Gypsy Mob : Episode 10/ Stumped

Her life had always been blessed. Charmed. Being the daughter of a mafia Don had a number of perks. No one troubled her and for the most part, she troubled no one. Her biggest problem in life had been not always getting exactly what she wanted, and even that was easily remedied. A few tears and her father would either make it right for her himself or dispatch Tony to do so, one way or the other. 

When she was taken into the Pleasure Tent, she had raged and screamed, throwing a tantrum until a dark cloud descended over her. It reminded her for a moment of how she had felt when she had tried opium. Then the cloud became complete and she forgot she even had a past. This time there was no warm fuzzy sensation she associated with drugs. All that remained was her basic physical needs; that was all the Gypsy curse allowed to remain. 

The hours had bled together until they felt like days. She was a robotic sex doll, her muffled grunts blending with the slap of flesh and the cries from the far reaches of the Pleasure Tent. These sounds from the darkness were beyond her immediate sphere of existence, the sources of which she neither knew nor cared. Her life had narrowed to the action of spreading her legs for each new client, then rising once he had finished to clean herself robotically with the pail of water beside her mattress. Upon finishing, she lay back down on the mattress to await the next arrival. As the newest member of the Pleasure Tent’s catalog of entertainment, she was not kept waiting long. 

A part of her measured the time by the number of sweaty men who climbed on top of her, eschewing hours, minutes and seconds for this new reckoning. The rest of her could not have cared less about the passage of time, or was incapable of marking it. All she knew was to cleanse her nethers when the crushing weight atop her ceased its grunting and thrusting and climbed off of her. 

Then, blasting through the darkness came the pain. The agony screamed up her arm, snapping her back to reality. The world roared into focus once again, inundating her with memories of her life since coming to the Gypsies. Horror and disgust competed with her missing hand for the place at the forefront of her brain. As blood dripped from where her hand had always been, the memory of other fluids not her own dripping from her added to the coldness she felt. The terror bloomed, consuming her. Now, the fear of what was going to happen to her vied for space with the horrified realization of what had happened to her, what had been happening to her, what she had allowed to happen to her, and what she had ahead of her. Nothing was worse than the other; they were all a nightmare. 

But the pain at the end of her arm would not be silenced, nor pushed aside. In a way, she was grateful for it, for it pulled her out of the darkness and into the present once more. This was not a much better place to be, but it led to the future, to the unknown, rather than to the past. She knew all too well what awaited her there. All she could see of what lay ahead was that her old life was over. She had died, or been murdered, as soon as she set foot into the fortune teller’s tent. There was no returning to what she had been.

After the amputation and Bianca’s awakening, the Gypsies had moved her from the Pleasure Tent, along with the other sex slaves who still had value. Talking rapidly in their own language, they would look at Bianca from time to time and laugh. The Bitch who had amputated her hand came over to her.

“I t’ink we get more use out of you,” she said in her horribly raspy voice, and grinned. Bianca kept the blank look on her face as inwardly she shrieked in fear and rage. . Bianca’s blood was still splattered across the woman’s face and arms. With an absent-minded air, she licked it from her fingers as she looked at the doorway to the smaller tent to which Bianca and her wretched brethren had been taken. 

“We put you back to work tomorrow,” the woman said, turning to leave. “Tonight, I have important business. Sleep well.” 

She vanished out the door, her words echoing in Bianca’s head. Tomorrow, it would resume. She had to get away from here. 

“Hello?” she called, her voice tentative in the silent darkness. No one replied. The other slaves were locked in their own minds, their own clouds of impenetrable darkness, helpless to respond. Hot, furious tears coursed down Bianca’s face as she lifted her body and was immediately halted by the straps holding her limbs to the table. 

Except…

The strap around the wrist where her hand had been felt loose. If not loose, definitely not tight enough to present a problem to a tapered limb without the widening of a hand at its end. Just tight enough to…

She pulled, tears leaping to her eyes as she fought to remain silent, the freshly severed nerves at the end of her stump enthusiastically voicing protests as the strap bit at them. She pulled harder, her mouth open in a silent scream. She thought she could feel her wrist slipping through the strap, but, wary of her mind’s tricks, she closed it to the sensation and kept pulling. The nails on her remaining hand scratched the bed, cracking below the quick, sending needle-like stabs of pain up her other arm, until, with a suddenness that took her off guard, her wrist pulled free of the strap, flying over her body with the residual force. Holding her stump over her eyes she blinked, unable to believe that she was actually free. Without thinking, she went to undo the strap holding her hand, before realizing she had no way to manipulate the buckle without fingers. 

A low whine came from her throat and she pushed at the end of the strap with her stump, the rough leather digging into the fresh meat where her arm now ended. Bolts of agony lanced up her arm, blood renewing its flow sluggishly from the stump at the irritation. Nevertheless, she persisted. Her eyes beheld the strap moving slowly through the loop and she redoubled her efforts, the pain increasing exponentially as her eyes watered. With a final shove, the strap slid through the loop and flapped loose, held only by the pin of the buckle. Sobbing with pain and relief, she raised her body and, gripping the end of the strap with her teeth, she pulled it back, releasing the pin and her hand. 

Falling back on the mattress, she cradled her freshly bleeding stump with her intact arm, silent tears pouring down her face. Staring at the mildewed tent roof, she counted her breaths until she was able to think about something besides the agony coursing through her. By and by, it relented, slightly. Instead of pain, she now thought of survival. 

Sitting up, she fumbled painfully with the straps holding her legs down. Though more difficult with one hand, it was easier than using her stump, which she kept protectively tucked into her armpit, away from all harm. Once her legs were free, she swung them over the mattress and carefully rose to her feet. Her legs wobbled but supported her. She wondered how much blood she had lost, then immediately put it from her mind. It didn’t matter. Looking out the entrance to the tent, she could see the shadows of several Gypsies nearby. She cowered back against the wall of the tent, wondering how she would ever escape, before her overworked mind realized a simple fact. She was not in a prison cell of steel bars. She was in a tent, surrounded on all sides by fabric. 

Crouching, she lifted the tent wall behind her, wriggling underneath it while still keeping her stump carefully shielded. Within a moment, she was outside the tent, smelling the fresh air only slightly marred by evil. Looking around, she saw no one and made her way for the outskirts of the camp as fast as her legs would carry her. 

She missed Tony, her childhood protector, spreading gasoline, by seconds, as she limped out of the camp, bound for home. 

Gypsy Mob: Episode 9/ Auction

Rocco and Brando kept well out of sight of the light emanating from the Pleasure Tent, unaware that cruel eyes watched them edging closer. Rocco’s gas can made sloshing sounds as he poured it around the base of the tent nearest the light, keeping one eye on the door. Across the midway, Brando mirrored his movements, the stench of gas making him light-headed. As he rounded the edge of the tent, a sweet smell like cinnamon and incense wafted over him, breaking through the fumes of gasoline. Pausing in his movements, he looked across at his brother, his vision swimming. Rocco did likewise, a silly grin on his face. 

“Do you smell that?” Brando asked, not troubling to keep his voice down. 

“Smells nice,” Rocco said. 

Movement from the tent caught their eye as Zara stepped into the light, clad in nothing but a g-string, her long dark hair covering her breasts but only barely. Her metallic eye shadow glinted in the light as she raised a hand dripping with red and beckoned to them. Her tongue ran across her lips, leaving an inviting sheen. 

Rocco’s jaw dropped, along with the gas can. Brando was already moving toward her, following as she backed slowly into the tent, shadow stealing over her as the two mobsters entered the tent. The cinnamon and incense smell grew stronger. As it did, their steps grew jerky and halted, their bodies swaying as their belabored nervous systems fought to keep them upright. As they crumpled to the floor, Zara swirled a cloak around her shoulders, hiding her body from sight. She surveyed the unconscious figures with distaste, prodding them with a bare foot. Beckoning to the shadows, two huge Gypsies appeared and lifted them with ease. 

“Take them to the chamber,” Zara rasped, fastening the cloak about her neck. “Customers waiting.”

Gasping and spluttering, Rocco and Brando regained consciousness as a bucket of water was splashed over them. Attempting to thrash, they found their arms and legs to be bound straight out, displaying their nude bodies on two splintered wooden tables. Blinking the water from his eyes, Rocco attempted to yell but found his mouth to be stuffed with a gag that tasted of gasoline. Screaming through the gag, he looked over and saw his brother once again mirroring his movements as they both thrashed within their bonds. Zara, now clothed, stepped forward into the circle of light shed by the naked bulb swinging over their heads. She held up their shredded clothes. 

“You would burn us alive like dogs?” she said, her eyes smoldering. “Taste gas on your clothing, curs. If you were lucky, fumes would put you back to sleep. But we do not show you such mercy.”

Throwing their mutilated garments to the floor, she gestured. A Gypsy stepped forward, holding a tarnished silver tray which may once have been a cookie sheet. Lowering it to their vision, the brother’s struggles renewed as they beheld the sharp and rusty implements laying on it. Placing a hand on each of their heads, Zara patted them. “Now now, be still. You no worry about these being used on you. Yet.”

Exchanging bewildered looks, Rocco and Brando ceased their futile thrashing and concentrated on breathing through their noses without inhaling gasoline fumes from the gags that had once been their fine clothing. 

Stepping back from the brothers, Zara barked an order in another language. Five hooded figures stepped into the light and lowered their hoods. Two women and three men stared at the prone bodies with a look of hunger on their faces. The women were young and attractive, the men fit and looked as though they would be at home in a bank. 

“We have two members of local mafia to offer today. They unharmed and last long time, if you want. Examine them before we start bidding,” Zara said, her new raspy voice carrying well in the stillness of the Pleasure Tent. 

One of the men and one of the women approached Rocco, the other three went to Brando. The brothers squirmed as they were fondled, poked and prodded by the prospective buyers. The woman flicked Brando’s penis with bright eyes, fondling it as it rose to attention against its owner’s will. She nodded gleefully. One of the men by Brando pulled the gag from his mouth, peeling his lips back to examine his teeth. Brando began to scream, his limbs turning to water in his prone position. Immediately Zara was there, silencing him with a firm strike to the side of the head with a small bit of pipe. Cramming the gag back into his mouth, she shot a furious look at the man who had removed it, who gave her an apologetic glance. 

When their examinations of the goods had satisfied them, the five returned to their positions at the edge of the circle of light. All looked excited, breathing heavily as their eyes darted from the tray of tools to their prospective property. 

“The bidding starts at one thousand. We start with this one, since he so excited for it,” Zara said with a grin. The buyers chuckled, glancing at Brando’s now wilting manhood. The woman who had fondled him raised her hand. The other man raised his. By the time the man gave up, Brando’s value had reached $27,000. The woman was breathing harder than ever and her eyes shone as she stepped forward to choose her weapon.

“No, you wait,” Zara said, wagging her finger. “We deal with brother first.”

When both brothers had been purchased for nearly $50,000, the losing bidders melted back into the darkness as silently as they had come. The winning bidders, the blonde woman and a man with carefully parted hair and a pencil-thin mustache, waited, looking excited. 

“Take them to chambers,” Zara said to the Gypsies before turning to the winning bidders and gesturing. “Please, follow purchase. You find everything you need there.” 

The two huge Gypsies came forward and began rolling the tables with the prone figures to separate sides of the tent, out of the circle of light. The brothers were screaming from behind their gags, pleading for mercy as they were separated by the stone-faced Gypsies. Folding screens were erected, shielding them from each other’s view as Zara brought a duplicate tray of implements to each side. The woman had shed her cloak and was tying back her long blonde hair into a tight bun. The man removed his own cloak to reveal a doctor’s scrubs. 

“Have fun,” Zara said with a grin. “You remove gags now, they hear each other die.”

Outside at the entrance to the Gypsy camp, Tony had been standing like a statue, watching where Brando and Rocco had vanished. The seconds ticked away. Once enough of them had elapsed, Tony pulled his own gas can from the trunk and began spreading gas around the border of the camp, taking care that each tent received a full dose. 

From within the camp, two sets of ragged screams began. Tony seemed not to hear it. He had heard far worse. 

Gypsy Mob : Episode 8/Play Me

Lucia Giletti was having a cigarette and a martini on the back patio, attempting to calm her mind as she waited for word of her daughter. She watched Tony finish hacking the last appendage off of the corpse of Ladez Hammalka, tossing it into the flaming incinerator before heaving the torso up and into the inferno. Taking a drag, she glanced up at the sound of the wireless doorbell chiming out over the background. Tony turned, making for the door as he wiped his hands on his suit but Lucia waved him off.

“Make sure that Gypsy burns to ash,” she said, draining her martini and setting it on the patio table. “I’ll see who’s at the door.”

Making her way through the mansion, she passed Giletti’s door, hearing the muffled yelling that was her husband’s phone voice coming from inside. Rolling her eyes, she took a drag of her cigarette as she reached the front door. Peering through the peephole, she saw nothing. Unlatching the lock, she opened the door.

A box, messily gift-wrapped, sat on the step. There was no card. Alarm bells tolled in the back of Lucia’s mind as she reached down to pick it up. The lid to the box was loose and she lifted it off. A nest of newspaper filled the box, but it was too heavy for that to be all it contained. Shutting the door behind her, she set the box on a table beside the door. Digging into the paper, her hand touched something smooth and round. Pushing the paper aside, she pulled a rewritable DVD from the box. On its gray surface, someone had scribbled PLAY ME in black marker. A frown creased her face as she set the disc down on the table and reached back into the box. Pushing through the paper, her hand touched something soft and wet. She upended the box on the table and amid the cascade of papers, something fell out and hit the table with a thump. As the wads of paper fell away, Lucia screamed.

Giletti finished a phone call with his accountant when he heard his wife’s screaming from the front hallway. Bolting from his desk as well as he could, he threw open the door to his study and saw her standing at the front entrance against the wall, her face white, her mouth open as an unholy scream emanated from it. As Giletti approached, he could see something on the table across the hallway from her in a litter of wadded paper. He drew nearer, and his breath caught as he saw the hand sitting on the table, the back emblazoned with a tattoo over which he and his daughter Bianca had fought endless battles when she came home with it. He could even hear his furious words to his daughter.

“You’re lucky I don’t cut that off, young lady!”

Lucia finally stopped screaming but her eyes were huge and her mouth hung open as though screaming silently. Giletti could not stop walking closer, hoping against hope that what he saw was not what was there. The closer he got, the more impossible it was to deny. Bianca’s hand lay on the table, mottled with blood vessels and turning gray.

“TONY!” Giletti’s roar cut through the mansion.

Tony appeared just as Lucia’s eyes rolled back in her head and her knees crumpled. With gargantuan steps, Tony reached her just in time to catch her before her head hit the floor, gently lowering her the rest of the way. His impassive eyes swept from her unconscious form to Giletti’s apoplectic face, to the source of their ire. Expressionless, he stepped forward and scooped the hand and DVD into the box. He glanced at Giletti, whose rage and horror seemed to have rendered him speechless. Silent as ever, Tony took the box and its contents to his quarters, leaving Giletti to deal with his comatose wife.

***

An hour later, Lucia had been revived and sedated. Now she reclined in a window seat overlooking the rear grounds, a cigarette forgotten in a shaking hand as she stared with vacant eyes at the immaculate lawn and garden. Giletti was back in his study, pretending to occupy himself with business affairs while his mind continued returning unbidden to his daughter’s decaying hand sitting on his entryway table.

A tentative knock at the study door made him jump. Cursing his frayed nerves and the Gypsies responsible.

“Enter!” Giletti barked.

Rocco and Brando opened the door and entered, looking grim.

“Yes, what now?” Giletti said, his voice rather higher-pitched than usual.

“Where is Lucia?” Brando asked, his own voice shaking.

“At the back window. Whaddaya want?” Giletti’s lighter chased the tip of a cigar around before the flame connected.

“Good,” Rocco said. He stepped forward, setting a laptop on Giletti’s desk. “She don’t need ta see this. Really, none of us do, but you’re her father, an’—”

“For Christ’s sweet sake, Rocco, what do you want?” Giletti sucked mightily at his cigar and the tremor in his hands died a little.

“Dis is da DVD dat was in da box,” Rocco said, pressing a key on the laptop and turning it around to face Giletti.

Giletti’s eyes lowered to the screen. There was a jumble of motion and blurry figures before the camera auto-focused, bringing into sharp detail a figure laying on a table, naked. The camera panned up the naked body to Bianca’s face, slack and vacant. Her face filled the frame, her blackened eye captured in crystal clear HD before panning down her body to the stump where her hand had once lived. The ragged flesh was dangling under the wire still wrapped around her wrist, swollen and angry as darkening necrotic tissue crept up her arm.

The screen went blank and silent for a few beats, before suddenly cutting to a jumpy shot of a blood-stained floor. The camera jiggled before panning across the bloody floor to what appeared to be a human but with a face so red and mangled that it only resembled a human face. Laughter filled the soundtrack as a hand holding a box cutter reached down and started slashing at the neck of the figure. Gurgling screams emanated from the faceless man.

Giletti’s face was white, his cigar forgotten as the camera jerked away, focusing on a woman with her back to the camera, arms spread out as though being crucified. As she revolved on the spot, Giletti could see her face, but it wasn’t her face. It was Matteo’s severed face she wore like a mask, sticking her tongue through the flayed lips to waggle at the camera cheekily. Pulling the face mask off, Zara leered at the camera, blowing it a kiss before it panned down to the floor and went dark.

Rocco and Brando looked at Giletti with apprehension, their own brutal retributions at his orders paling in the wake of the savagery of the Gypsies. Don Giletti was frozen, his eyes fixed on the now black screen as the blood filled them. Jerking to his feet, Giletti roared “If dis is what dey want, then dis is what dey shall have. Take Tony an’ exterminate every one of them! Do not let any of ‘em die widout suffering!”

As the Giletti car rolled to a stop at the darkened carnival, the smell of gasoline was strong, the fumes leaching through the trunk and into the cab. Even with all the windows open, Brando and Rocco were still feeling decidedly light-headed. Tony, behind the wheel, was as impassive as ever. Killing the engine, they sat there for a moment, letting their ears adjust to the sound.

It was nearly dead silence. The darkness of the night was broken only by a weak glow from the center of the carnival, the silence only split by the occasional human voice coming from the direction of the glow. Rocco and Brando looked at each other, their unease increased exponentially, having watched the video.

“Right, Tony,” Rocco said, his voice striving to sound tough. “Start spreading gas around th’ outskirts. We’ll take de other cans inside and spread it around as much as we can. Hopefully if we light it up from de perimeter, de whole fucking place will go up.”

Popping the trunk, Tony unfolded his long form from behind the wheel and grabbed one of the gas cans. He looked around a moment before nodding at Rocco and vanishing into the darkness.

Each grabbing another can, Rocco and Brando advanced on the entrance, nerves strung to the nth degree to where when Rocco stepped on a twig, they both jumped.

Creeping into the tents, they began sloshing the gas over the fabric at the base of the tents, conserving the liquid to ensure maximum saturation as they worked their way inward toward the glow. As they grew closer, they could see everything was dark and shut down except for the Pleasure Tent. Keeping out of sight of its entrance, they continued their work, unaware that eyes within the tent were tracking their every move.

Zara’s throat was sore, but her eyes were bright as she watched them from the shadows, seething with barely controlled rage. She watched them draw closer and an evil grin spread across her face. With a hoarse whisper, she beckoned to one of the Gypsies and whispered instructions. With a chuckle, they both faded back further into the tent, to await the arrival of the Giletti brothers.

Gypsy Mob : Episode 7/ The Amputation

The sun had been up for some time when Zara rose. Catering to the nighttime crowd meant the Gypsy camp went to bed late and was rarely stirring before noon. Which meant by the time she found the body, it could have been there for hours.

The camp was roused by a piercing scream, sending everybody scrambling for the nearest weapon. It was a scream some had never heard in their lives, a scream which some had hoped never to hear again. It spoke of loss, horror, and death.

First responders would never be able to forget the sight of Zara, eldest daughter of Ladez, cradling what at first appeared to be a mangled mannequin with no head, just a mass of hamburger. As they grew nearer and their minds were able to process what they were seeing, they realized it was the naked body of their patriarch, the tattoos covering his chest and arms unmistakable. If not for that, the shredded remains of his face and head would have left them completely at a loss.

Zara was holding the shattered body close to her, rocking back and forth and caressing where the forehead had been, her fingers growing red as she howled her anguish to the sky. One by one, her brethren sank to their knees, unable to continue standing or tear their eyes away from what had once been their leader.

When her throat had grown raw and a red mist was coming from her mouth, Zara was the first to rise. Standing, she dropped the body as though she had no more use for it. Her voice was hoarse but still carried. Every Gypsy present heard her, and no one doubted.

“I am the leader now. You will all follow me. If you challenge me, you will end up worse than my poor father. This I say!” She screamed the last, her voice hoarsening further as the wind carried specks of blood to coat the faces of those nearest.

“Now!” she shrieked. “Kill the Italian bitch and her boyfriend! Cut them into pieces and send each of them to her family! One by one, so they get a new one every day!”

Her wildly rolling eyes caught movement. A wizened old woman several yards into what had become a crowd was moving forward, breaking through the tightly packed ranks. Standing before Zara, the old woman bent to her knee, casting her eyes downward.

“Ma’am, though I do not challenge thee, I must mention; the fresh Italian girl is now our top earner. Do not cut off thy nose to spite thy face.”

Zara stared at the woman, her face working. Finally, she arrived at a decision.

“As you say then. We will take the bitch’s hand and do as I have said with her boyfriend. Then, if need be, we can continue amputating the unnecessary bits from her until her daddy sees reason.” Zara looked to the mangled corpse of her father and tears sprung to her eyes which she brushed angrily away. “They will pay for what they have done to us.”

What was once Bianca stared at the ceiling. It never changed. Sometimes she stared at the ceiling, sometimes at the ground, or to the left or right, depending on what her current client wanted. She was never required to be on top. She lay there, mechanically rising from her cot to swab her nether regions before returning to her supine position. Sometimes she was required to take someone into her mouth, but for the most part, whomever entered her enclosure was content to take his will and be gone.

When the flap which served as her door pushed aside, she barely noticed. Her lizard brain associated the sound with imminent sexual penetration and wearily began sending lubricative signals to what controlled her sexual organs. She heard murmuring of at least two voices and began to relax her nether regions, as she had been conditioned to do upon hearing more than one voice. But these voices were choked neither with rut nor excitement, as she had grown used to. These voices were businesslike as she lay on the cot, her legs spread. Unbidden, her mind regressed to her earliest gynecology appointments, and she felt a twinge of nervousness, as she had always felt before having her private areas examined. At the same time, her lizard brain insisted that she was about to play host to multiple uncaring men and responded enthusiastically by sending hormones to her brain, allowing her body to compensate for it.

She opened her eyes, hoping there was some redemptive feature for her eyes to comprehend. Movement at her feet registered first as she saw one Gypsy wrap a length of chain around both her ankles and before she could think to move, her wrists were seized by two incredibly strong hands and yanked above her head, stretching her body to the limit. She screamed in fear and pain as her muscles were stretched far beyond their normal breaking points. She felt something tear in her right shoulder where she had strained it years ago throwing the javelin in track. She screamed again, helpless in her bonds. Vaguely, she felt a strong pressure around her right wrist. She looked and saw a length of wire wrapped around her forearm just above her wrist.

Zara walked forward, a wide smile across her face as her tongue continually moistened her lips. A small black plastic object stuck out of her tightly clenched fist. As she grinned, her thumb moved and a small narrow silver sliver shot out of its end. It retracted into the black plastic handle then shot out again as Zara advanced, her thumb playing with the release switch of the box cutter, sending its five-inch blade in and out.

“Don’t worry, bitch,” Zara rasped in her new voice, halting the blade’s action as she drew near, raising the box cutter to level at Bianca’s face. The blade shot out another several inches. “You’ll live.”

Striding forward, Zara knelt on Bianca’s hand and began sawing at her wrist, below the wire. Screaming, Bianca fought to free her hand but Zara’s weight was relentless and Bianca’s hand did not move as Zara expertly cut between the radius and ulna, and the scaphoid and lunate bones of Bianca’s arm and hand, neatly severing her right hand.

Bianca screamed as blood spurted but tapered off quickly, the wire tourniquet doing its job. She bucked and thrashed but the chain remained around her legs and her arms remained securely over her head. As she flailed about, she caught glimpses of the figures holding her arms steady. She spat at them, cursing and swearing between sobs as she berated them, everything, anything, for the pain that she felt, before falling silent at the horrible new voice of Zara, grating in her face:

“IT CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE.”

Bianca shut up, screams fighting to escape from her mouth as she whimpered, tears rolling down her face as her phantom hand flexed back and forth in agony. Zara picked up the severed hand, waved it at Bianca and raised its middle finger.

Gypsy Mob : Episode 6 / Negotiation

Giletti sat in his study, his latest cigar smoldering in the ashtray. He watched the ribbons of smoke curling up to the ceiling, grinding his teeth in frustration. He was not accustomed to his directives meeting with resistance. Reaching for the cigar, he clamped his teeth around it, drawing smoke into his lungs and holding it there until little sparks burst in his vision and he let out the air in a puff of smoke. 

The door to his study swung open and his wife Lucia entered, bringing with her the scent of flowers. “Are they coming?”

“They better,” Giletti said, stubbing the cigar out and immediately lighting another. “If they don’ return wid de Gypsy leader, more heads will roll.”

At the other end of the mansion, brakes squeaked as the Giletti car pulled to a stop. Rocco and Brando got out of the front seats, opening the rear door for Ladez. Tony shoved him out, knocking him to the ground before hiking him to his feet. 

“Right dis way, gramps,” said Rocco, gesturing to the door with a bow. “The boss can’t wait to make your acquaintance.” 

Looking up into Tony’s blank and menacing face, Ladez swallowed the retort rising to his lips, looking at the silent infant still cradled in one of Tony’s huge hands. Since its skull had been compressed, the child had made no sound and scarcely moved. Fearful of provoking the giant further, Ladez said nothing and made for the mansion. Silently, Brando, Rocco and Tony fell into step on either side, flanking him. 

Ladez was furious and afraid but could not help admiring the opulence of the mansion as he was escorted through it. The wide-open spaces were filled with silence, broken only by the clacking of shoes and rustle of fabric as they made their way to Giletti’s study. The wall was heavy with paintings in ornate frames, sculptures stood on plinths in various corners and the soft light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. At the end of a long hallway, a tall door stood open. Reaching it, Rocco rapped twice on it and pushed it open. 

The man sitting behind the giant desk was exactly what Ladez would expect a mob boss to look like. He was balding, heavy, immaculately dressed in a gray suit that would have bought an entire Ferris wheel. A fat cigar jutted from his stubby fingers, filling the room with a sweet-smelling smoke. The woman standing beside the man was tall and willowy, her dress hugging her curves just enough to accentuate them without showing them off. Her long dark hair fell below her shoulders and her eyes dripped disdain and hatred as they met his. The Don’s eyes were blank, but Ladez could see the wheels turning behind them. 

“I am Don Giletti,” the seated man said. “What do they call you, Gypsy?”

“Ladez Hammalka. I dere leader.” Ladez gestured to the infant in Tony’s arms. “That my youngest son.”

“How unfortunate for him,” Lucia sneered. Giletti gave her an amused glance. Ladez felt his face grow hot. 

“Why I here? Why you harm a child to get me here?”

“Because, you too have an innocent child ‘eld prisoner. Dis is to give you an idea of how it feels.” Giletti sucked on his cigar, blowing a large cloud of smoke in Ladez’s direction. “Return her to me and cease your trafficking operation. Dis is our territory.”

“Never,” snapped Ladez. “I not born with silver spoon in mouth; de girls will never go out of style and my family must eat.”

“Your family, yes,” Giletti said. “Quite a number to provide for. Nearly one hundred wretched souls, if what I hear is correct.” He looked at Lucia, who was drumming her nails on the desk. “In de interests of moving on wid our lives, I am prepared to offer you a generous sum in exchange for your cessation and departure.”

Lucia walked forward, pulling a check from her cleavage and forcing it into Ladez’s hand. He looked at it, registering the number of zeros before his pride crumpled it up and tossed it in her face. 

“You no buy us off like so many others,” Ladez said. “Our way is our way and has always been. We rely on our own since I led them, and we will always.”

Lucia gave him a look of contempt before returning to the desk. Giletti looked tired. “Dis is your final word?”

“Ya,” said Ladez, drawing himself up to his full height. 

Sighing, Giletti gestured. Tony stepped in front of Ladez and wrapped a hand around the child’s skull once again. Ladez started forward before being hit in the legs by what felt like an iron pipe. Falling to the ground, he looked up in time to see Tony’s long nails stab through the infant’s soft skull, drops of dark red blood dripping down the tiny body and pooling on the floor. The child made a soft sound, twitching its little arms, before lapsing back into stillness. .

Ladez felt hot tears dripping down his face as he watched, unable to move, unable to tear his gaze away. Lucia was breathing hard, licking her lips as Rocco and Brando laughed. Giletti was expressionless, watching Ladez’s face. 

“Is dis what you wanted? Do you feel you are doing right by your people by resisting me?”

Ladez struggled to speak as he watched his son’s life blood pooling on the tile. Finally, he managed to choke out, “You win. We go.”

Giletti’s face broke into a wide grin. “It’s too late for that, Gypsy.” He motioned to Rocco. Ladez was about to speak when the iron pipe smashed into his skull, sending him to the floor as darkness exploded over him. 

Lucia seized the pipe from Rocco and, raising it high, brought it down on Ladez’s skull again, and again. And again. Shrieking incoherently with laughter, she continued until the man’s head no longer resembled anything living. Coming back to herself, she dropped the pipe on his body, breathing heavily. 

“Get dis mess out of here before it stains de tile,” Giletti said, lighting a fresh cigar. “Oh, and Tony, get rid of dat fucking thing.” 

Nodding, the giant took what was once the youngest member of an ancient Gypsy bloodline into the grounds behind the mansion, where they kept the incinerator. 

Gypsy Mob Episode 5 – Childhood

 

In the days Ladez Hammalka was a young boy in an ancient roving Gypsy clan, he remembered hard times, tight belts and empty bellies. He remembered going with his mother to beg on a street corner when he was too young to be on his own. When he reached nine years old, he was sent to find his own street corner along with his brothers and sisters. His mother sometimes went with his father, sometimes on her own, for the more members of their family were out there, the more they would come home with. Living on the public’s kindness, some nights everybody went to bed hungry. 

The Gypsies had no communal property, everything belonged solely to their respective families. There was a code the Gypsies lived by; while they were not above swindling and conning their respective marks, thievery from another within the clan was not tolerated. Ladez Hammalka remembered the screams of those who had found out the hard way as their thieving fingers were severed, before being turned out of the clan for good. But mostly Ladez Hammalka remembered the nights he could not sleep, staring at the ceiling of their tent, hunger growling inside him like a wolf, rocks beneath his back getting larger by each hungry hour. Sometimes he fainted. 

The man who called himself the leader of the clan was a weak individual named Hurfong Sammenz who had been in the position for as long as Ladez had been alive. The rest of the clan possessed no individuals who wanted the responsibility and so they blindly followed Sammenz. They wandered aimlessly across the country, crisscrossing it at random, sometimes buried in snow in the mountains or dehydrating in the desert in August. The older and weaker members of the clan had started expiring before mutterings of removing their leader reached his ears. Rather than take a chance on a violent coup, Sammenz vanished in the night, taking with him as many valuables as he could easily lay his hands on. 

Without a leader, the clan began loosely drifting apart, finally going their own separate ways. The Hammalka family, crammed into two large vans along with everything they owned, never stayed in one place for more than a week before they were told to “move along.” Sometimes these warnings came through official channels; sometimes one of Ladez’s brothers came back to their camp with a broken arm or one of his sisters returned home with a black eye and a split lip, refusing to make eye contact. Then it was time to cram all eight children and all of everyone’s possessions into the two vans again. Over the years as the family grew and the children did likewise, their food situation became more and more dire. More often, all the food went to Mother, who was expecting their next sibling and was eating for two. 

One night, Ladez heard Mother and Father talking outside the tents at night, when they thought the children were all asleep. 

“…can’t go on much longer…”

“…horrible…”

“….no choice.”

“But which?!”

“Shh!”

The voices dropped lower than he could hear, and he fell asleep before he heard another word. 

The next day, the family stopped at a gas station. His parents seemed anxious, glancing at him frequently as the rest of the kids hopped out of the vans, stretching their legs. Elbowing his siblings out of the way, Ladez ran for the store, his stomach churning. Last night, they had eaten from the dumpster of a deli that threw out all its unsold perishable food at closing time. Something had upset his stomach and he was not even sure he could get into the bathroom before everything unloaded in his pants. Bursting through the door, he looked around wildly. 

“Bathroom?” 

The clerk looked up from the register. “Paying customers only.” 

“I’ll buy somethin’, PLEASE…” Ladez said as his stomach gave another almighty creak and groan. 

Another eternal moment as the clerk considered, then nodded towards the back door. “Out the door and to the left.”

Ladez sprinted out the back door and turned left, sobbing with relief as he saw the bathroom door, unoccupied and open. 

When he was certain he was finished, he walked gingerly around the back of the building, picking his way through the overgrowth to make sure the clerk wouldn’t catch sight of him. He was so focused on avoiding the clerk that when he saw his family’s vans pulling out of the station and back onto the main road, it didn’t register until he saw the empty spaces at the pump where the vans had sat. He forgot the burning of his sphincter as he sprinted after the vans on legs that were still weak, yelling hoarsely as they pulled further and further away. Coming to a halt, chest heaving, he watched them drive off down the road, out of his life forever. 

Of course, Ladez didn’t know that yet. Returning to the gas station, he found a spot to wait where he could easily see them returning to pick him up, apologizing profusely for having left him in the commotion of getting everyone back in the car. He would be merciful, he decided, give them some hurt looks and maybe a tear. But he would not rake them over the coals. He loved his family too much for that. 

***

The adult Ladez sat in his motorhome which still reeked of burned flesh. His hand throbbed where he had pierced it, and he flexed it, feeling the torn edges of the puncture knitting together slowly. In a few hours, it would be smooth and unmarked again. 

A rapping at the door of the cruiser opened his eyes. His eldest daughter Zara peered in, her dark eyes wide. “Father?”

“Come, Zara. What have you?”

The girl entered the motorhome, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “There are more men here to see you.”

Ladez raised one bushy eyebrow. “Back for more?”

“They will not enter,” she said, glancing at the door as though to verify it. “They want you to come out and speak to them.”

Something in her tone awoke an uneasy feeling in Ladez, one he had not experienced often. “There is more. Tell me.”

“One of them is darkness,” she said, forking the sign of the Evil Eye at the door. “You should be careful of him.”

Zara had too often been proven correct in her analysis of strangers. This disquiet in her deepened the unease Ladez felt. He stood without speaking, opening the door and stepping out into the night. 

There was a campfire burning outside the camper, casting yellow flickers of light on the faces of the two smaller men standing beside it. Their faces were blank and hard, their arms crossed over expensive suits. The third man towered behind them, a bulky shadow cloaked in darkness, exuding darkness. Ladez, who was nowhere near as sensitive to the auras of others as his daughter Zara, could feel the menace from the tall figure. Unbidden, a chill ran down his spine. 

“What do ye want from me?” he asked, crushing his fear of the tall man down deep where they could not see it. “Do ye come to experience the burning, like yer friends?” He grinned, a smile so fake that the two men could easily tell. 

“We have come to deliver you your last invitation,” Rocco said, his voice flat. “Return wid us to speak wid the Don, or Tony will ‘ave no choice but to make you.” 

The towering figure shifted slightly. Ladez peered into the shadows but could make out nothing but a silhouette. He could smell the menace baking off the man, and tried to keep control of the conversation. 

“And if I don’? You have no power here,” Ladez said dismissively. “I could turn ye to charcoal with a whisper of my will, all t’ree of you.”

Brando laughed and spat into the fire. “Try it.”

Piercing his palm again, Ladez flicked his hand at them and cried “Bur–!” 

Before the word had left his lips, the silhouette had stepped forward, the fire casting light over his chest while leaving his face shrouded in black. Ladez let the word die unfinished as he saw his youngest son, three months old, dangling from the man’s enormous hand by his head. The man held the infant up, his arm straight out. Tendons in his hand stood out as his hand tightened on the child’s skull. Ladez could hear a sickening pop from inside the man’s hand. 

“Now ‘e’s got brain damage,” Rocco said, flicking his cigarette into the fire. “Keep playing wid us and Tony will crush ‘is skull into pulp. Come wid us now, and your boy will just be a little slow in de head. Up to you, Pops.”

Rage and terror fought a bitter battle in Ladez, his child dangling from one enormous hand as the two men in the firelight smirked at him. Behind him, he could hear Zara weeping quietly. 

“I come wi’ you, I have word dat dere be no damage to my family?” Ladez asked, fighting to keep the tremor from his voice. 

“One t’ing at a time, gran’pa,” Brando said. “Let’s go talk to de Don an’ you can hear what he has t’say. Otherwise, Tony’s just getting started.”

Ladez looked over his shoulder at Zara, looking at him with red-rimmed streaming eyes. “Go, papa,” she moaned. “Or they kill us all.”

Turning back, Ladez nodded. “Release me son and I go wi’ you.”

“No, ‘e’ll be coming wid us, in case you get any ideas.” Brando grinned as Tony tucked the little body inside his jacket, where it made only the smallest of bulges. 

Ladez ground his teeth together in impotent fury.

“After you, gramps,” Rocco said, stepping aside and gesturing magnanimously.

Gypsy Mob : Episode Four / Burn

The dark was sticky and warm and the air was so thick it felt as though he could swim through it. He tried but could not move. His head could, but nothing else. Pulling at his hands and legs only caused what felt like razor wire to cut deeper into his wrists and ankles. Trying to open his eyes, he found they were behind a cloth tightly bound around his head. When he tried to take a deep breath, his airway was blocked by a smooth rubber ball gag. From what seemed to be very far away, he could hear the sounds of the Gypsy carnival. Wherever he was had no noise. 

Except…

As he became more alert, he could hear the sound of breathing from behind him. His heart raced and he tried to speak around the ball gag. 

“Hoh, oh eeh–”

It was hopeless. Ball gags were well designed. But without warning, the breathing gave way to footsteps, which approached his chair from behind. There was the sound of fabric stretching and a metallic flexing sound. Then the fabric was ripped from his head, freeing his eyes. The tent he was in had a bed, dresser, mirror and a little fan rotating as it buzzed. All this was lost upon him though. 

The girl from the front of the Pleasure Tent stood before him, nude, one hand on one slender hip, the other hand balancing a metal pie dish on her fingertips as though she were a waitress. His heart leapt into his mouth and despite his predicament, he could feel the beginnings of an erection. 

This was not lost on her, since he was nude, he could now see, spread-eagled on the chair with one leg wrapped to each chair leg with razor wire. She smirked at his member’s pathetic show of force and lowered the pie tin to his eyes. He gazed back at himself from the pool of his own blood, reflected in billions and billions of microscopic cells. 

“Rom mikiah wheli fursna,” she hissed at him, dipping a finger in the blood and licking it off sensually. “I enjoy watching you die, white man. Bit by bit.”

He tried to speak but could not even attempt it. He was mesmerized, watching as she dipped her palm into the pool of his blood and reached for him. Stroking him in earnest, it didn’t take long for him to reach his full potential. She straddled him and his vision grew darker and darker as she shouted the words into his face and they both realized culmination. 

Catching her breath, the girl stood and hopped off Matteo, taking no notice of his vacant expression. She filled a pie dish with his fluids.

A Gypsy with long braided hair entered and looked her straight in the eye, paying no mind to her exposed body. One eye was a bright, piercing blue. The other, a bleached white sightless orb. 

“Dai, shivisna ecrusi taruma,” she said, gesturing at Matteo and reaching for a robe. “He is ready.” 

The man nodded, crossing the room to Matteo and lifting both him and the chair to which he was bound. He carried Matteo out of the tent without a sound. The girl picked up the pie dish of Matteo’s fluids, carrying them from the tent, careful not to spill a drop. 

A long black car pulled into the carnival’s parking area and stopped with a crunch of gravel and swirl of dirt. Four men got out, dressed in fine suits with matching fedoras. The bulge under each of their arms and at their waist made it clear these men expected trouble.

Giletti’s goons, Marco, Branden, Lou and Carter, were on high alert, not because of the Gypsies but because Giletti had been apoplectic with rage and let it be known that negative results would not be well received. As they entered the midway, they spread out, heads on swivels, walking with purpose. The public parted before them uneasily, sensing trouble. 

Zara spotted an anomaly in the movement of the crowd. She had been working here her whole life and could easily pick out the signs of anything but the general public plodding through the ritual of a carnival. The four well-dressed men were coming her way with a purpose, looking far too bulky to be carrying anything less than an Uzi each beneath their jackets. 

Carter was in the lead and was not the type of man to be coy. He walked up to Zara and showed her the butt of his gun. “Word is you got someone for sale who ain’t yours, lady,” he said, his voice casual enough that none of the public nearby looked around. “The boss sez you’re to let her go wid us, now, and your boss is s’posed to come back to meet wid our boss also. Now,” Carter gestured at the other three unsmiling men surrounding the entrance. “We can do dis de easy way or de hard way.”

Ladez Hammalka had been leading his clan of approximately one hundred souls for many years. It had started many years ago with two families, roaming the country in their RVs. Over time, marriages and unions had strengthened the bonds of family and increased their numbers. One year, Ladez chanced upon an old carnival ride at an auction. It needed only minor repairs, and nobody else wanted it. For a song, Ladez got them to throw in the trailer that housed the track and cars. In little hamlets they frequented, the locals were thrilled by any entertainment and the ride gave them another reason to visit the Gypsy midway, which was little more than booths selling hand-made items. They flocked to the carnival atmosphere, a fact not lost on Ladez, who began expanding on it, buying rides that needed fixing and having the mechanically gifted members of the family bringing them back to life. 

With their income once again secure, Ladez began seeking not only security but luxury. One of his wives put to him the suggestion of a body shop. Through her connections, she knew no shortage of orphaned or runaway girls that would be happy to lay with a man in exchange for food and shelter. Ladez agreed. 

Now, decades later, as he sat in his Empire Liner motorcoach, looking at the four men who had entered by holding an automatic weapon to his only daughter’s stomach, he felt a cold rage burning within him. Come to take what is ours again, he thought. 

“Release her.” Ladez said.

“I think we’ll just hold on to her while we chat, just for safekeeping, Pops,” Branden, the tallest of the four, was holding Zara around the throat with his Uzi to her head. “Don’t get any funny ideas wid the elbows, honey.”

Carter chuckled, holding his gun lazily on Ladez. “Yeah, I’d hate to have to shoot dis old guy just because you decided to be a hero. We just want Bianca Giletti, and for the old man to come meet our boss.”

Ladez felt the cold rage turn hot. Without looking at his hand, he pierced his palm with a sharpened ring he always wore and hissed, “Calidi.”

The men looked confused and raised their guns sharply as Ladez’s hand rose from behind his back, blood running down his withered arm. He raised his hand high and said it again, just as a drop of blood fell and hit the floor of the RV. 

“Calidi!”

The two men holding their weapons screamed and dropped them as the metal began to glow a dark red. Blisters shot up on the hands which had been holding their guns. Marco and Lou, their weapons still in their holsters, began to yell and clawed their jackets open, yanking the hot metal from their armpits and dropping them to the floor. Zara elbowed Branden in the stomach and slipped from his grasp, running over to Ladez. Branden doubled over, unable to howl in pain over his burned hand. Carter was squeezing his hand between his legs as tears rolled down his face. His eyes, wide and streaming, stared at Ladez. 

“What—how did you—”

“SILENCE!” thundered Ladez and all four men cringed back, nursing their various hurts. 

“You t’ink you come in here and start giving orders? After years of living off yer filth and offal, we finally able to ‘ave a portion of luxury you ‘ave lived all your life, an’ you come in ‘ere to take from us.” The old man’s voice did not get louder, but it seemed to fill the entire room. The four men cowered as he went on. “You will walk from ‘ere an’ tell your boss of what occurred. Tell him, we not like what he used to, and will not roll over like good dogs.”

Relief washed over the faces of the men as Ladez finished speaking. “We will, sir,” Carter spoke up. “We appreciate you letting us go wid just the warning, we’ll make sure—”

Ladez held up a hand. “Well…not all you,” he said with a leer. Carter’s eyes traveled to the bloody hand, a drop poised to fall. His eyes went back to Ladez’s. There was no mercy there. 

“Burn,” Ladez hissed as the drop fell. 

Immediately, Branden and Carter began to scream as a fire as they had never known erupted within them, as though their very souls were being incinerated. Steam poured out of their orifices as they thrashed around, clawing at themselves, unable to quench the internal flames. Lou and Marco flattened themselves against the wall, horrified, unable to look away. Carter’s eyes melted out of his sockets and down his face as his tongue, blackened, flopped uselessly inside his charcoal mouth. Branden had fallen to his knees and was trying to scream, but all that came out was black dust. When they finally toppled over, dead burned husks, they left a charcoal smear on the motorcoach’s carpet. 

Lou and Marco had at some point clutched each other for support as they witnessed the men being burned alive. Huddled together in a wet spot of shared urine, they stared wide-eyed at Ladez. 

The old man took a deep breath and let it out, closing his eyes for a moment. Opening them, he gestured, a sweep of the hand toward the RV’s door. It was with the non-bloody hand, but Lou and Marco still flinched. 

“Now, go from ‘ere.” Ladez clasped his hands before him, the bloody one holding the clean one. “Tell your Don what you ‘ave seen, with my regards. And express my condolences to the families of dese two foolish men.” He nodded at the charcoal husks. 

Marco nodded, his eyes unfocused. Lou croaked something that may have been an affirmative. Neither moved. 

“GO!” screamed Zara. Immediately both men stampeded for the door, nearly tearing it off the frame before realizing it opened outward. With a bang, they fled into the night. 

Don Giletti was just lighting his fourth cigar when Lou and Marco burst into his study, panting heavily, having run the whole way, since the car keys were in Carter’s pocket. Giletti looked at their faces and his heart sank. 

“Where are Carter and Branden?” 

“Charcoal!” screamed Lou, quite hysterical. “He done something, black magic, witchcraft, voodoo, I dunno but he burnt em both, pore ol’ Carter an’ Branden burnt to a crisp from the inside out, on me life sir, they got me too, me and pore Marco, lookit—” 

Dragging Marco(who seemed to be in a daze) forward to the Don’s desk, he pulled Marco’s coat and shirt open. He yanked the undershirt to the side so Giletti could see a blister in the shape of a gun seared into Marco’s chest just beneath the armpit. “I got one too, but we was lucky compare’t to Branden and Carter, poor fellers just burnt up…”

Turning away from the blubbering Lou, Giletti looked at his brother Brando with smoldering eyes. “Get Tony and you go down dere to talk to dat old man. Or rather, let Tony do de talking, as loud as he pleases, as long as de old man is able to answer questions when he gets here.”

Brando smirked. “Tony don’t usually have to speak too loudly before they gets the point.”

Giletti stared at his cigar, smoldering gently away in his hand. “Indeed.”

Gypsy Mob : Episode 3 / Gypsy Traffic

Peter Giletti had just pulled his Ferrari into the Giletti mansion when Matteo came bursting from the front door, his face a mask of terror so stark it made Peter’s balls creep. Putting the sports car in park and setting the emergency brake, he hopped out and waved. 

“Matteo! What the fuck is up?”

Wild-eyed, Matteo looked around. When he spotted Peter, he rushed over, seizing Peter by the shoulders. “Pete! You gotta help me! I lost her and your uncle—”

“Whoa whoa whoa, first things first, drop the Armani,” Peter said, pushing Matteo’s hands away from his tailored jacket. “I just got this. Now what about my uncle?”

“He’s gonna kill me if I don’t find Bianca!” Matteo said, wringing his hands. 

“Wait a minute, where’s Bianca? What happened?”

Matteo blurted out the night’s events, circling back to the salient point. “He’s going to kill me if I can’t find Bianca! Peter, you gotta help me!”

“You really ditched Bianca to go fuck a whore? That’s pretty—”

“Yes, I know what it is, but it is what it is and if I don’t find her, I’ll never fuck anything again! Now will you help me or not?” Matteo waited, shoulders heaving. 

“Yeah, yeah, sure thing,” Peter said, opening the door to his Ferrari and sliding back inside. “Come on.”

They made good time back to the carnival, Peter pushing the little car up to nearly 130mph on the straight stretches. The police in the area knew the Giletti family cars on sight and knew better than to interfere with them. Peter concentrated on his driving, Matteo sat rigid in his seat, savoring each breath he took, wondering if they would be among his last. 

Before long, the lights glowing in the night became brighter and they were pulling into the parking lot of the Gyspy camp. Matteo reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a Glock .9mm. Racking the slide, he ensured a round was in the chamber and stowed the gun away again. Peter watched, an eyebrow raised. 

“Guns blazing?”

Matteo shook his head, scrabbling at the car door handle. “Just a little protection. It’s up to them.” 

Shrugging, Peter chambered a round into his own Glock and tucked it back into his shoulder holster. 

Passing under the gate to the scruffy midway, Peter popped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it with a practiced motion as he surveyed the meager crowd while following Matteo. “Pretty weak carnival. Everything is rusted. You couldn’t pay me to ride one of these fucking things.” He took a drag as his eyes swiveled to follow a blonde girl with a painted face and jeans which looked to be painted on as well. “Rides are for kids anyway.”

“There,” Matteo said, pointing as he quickened his pace. “That’s the tent.”

Peter looked from the sign proclaiming Your Fortune for $5 to the scrawny man beneath it. The man grinned invitingly, gesturing to the door. Rolling his eyes, Peter caught sight of something far more akin to his tastes. 

“You go ahead,” he said to Matteo, who was fumbling in his pocket for a five-dollar bill. Beating him to the draw, Peter pulled out a five and gave it to the skinny man who made it disappear. “My treat. I’ll wait out here, I want to finish this.” He waved the cigarette. 

“Okay. I’ll yell if I need backup.” 

Peter saluted with the cigarette as Matteo disappeared into the tent. He took another drag and dropped it to the ground in front of the Gypsy, grinding it out and turning without a word toward the Pleasure Tent. 

“Hiya,” said the girl attending its entrance, flashing a dazzling white smile over the barest of tops. “Looking for pleasure?”

“Yes, and I’m in a bit of a hurry,” Peter said, glancing over at the fortune tent. 

The girl smiled. “Take our newest girl. Tonight her first night.”

“I’ll take her. How much?”

“$200,” the girl said, holding out a hand. 

Peter’s fingers nimbly extracted two Benjamins from his wallet and slapped them into the girl’s palm. She tucked it down her skirt and beckoned him to follow as she slipped into the tent. Peter followed her through the labyrinth of cloth stalls, adjusting himself as the sounds of sex further stimulated his growing member. The girl stopped at one of the curtains and gestured. 

“She new. Start tonight. No worry ‘bout that. She ready.” With that and a smirk that gave Peter’s peter a twinge, she retreated into the dim of the tent. 

Peter licked his lips and pulled the curtain back. A girl lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling. The shadows hid her face, framed by her long dark hair. She was nude, her arms over her head and legs slightly apart. At the sound of his zipper, her eyes flickered towards him, then back to the ceiling. Unbuckling his pants and pulling down his underwear, he mounted her and slid himself inside. The girl at the front had been right, this girl was prepared. It didn’t take him long and the whole time, her expression never changed. 

Panting, Peter slid out of her and wiped himself on the cot before standing and refastening his pants. “Good for you, honey?”

“Yes.”

Peter’s hands froze in the act of buckling his belt. It was not the word itself, nor its delivery, flat, dead, devoid of any emotion. The voice he had heard at the Giletti mansion more times than he could count. It was Bianca’s voice. 

“…Bi?” Peter croaked. 

She looked at him blankly. With shaking hands, he pulled his lighter from his pocket. Flicking it open, he cast a soft glow over the room, illuminating the face of his cousin, Bianca Giletti.

“Bianca! What the fuck are you doing here!”

She said nothing, just continued staring at him. If not for her breathing, she could have been dead. 

“I’ve got to get you out of here. Can you walk?” Peter reached for her, weak-kneed at the thought of touching her again after what he had just done. “Bi, I’m sorr—”

A harsh whisper of canvas behind Peter made him spin. An enormous man covered in tattoos and body hair had torn the curtain back and was reaching for him. Peter’s heart leaped into his mouth as he staggered backward. 

“Where you tink you goin’ wit our girl, eh?” the man growled, stepping forward. 

Peter’s reflexes, honed by years of the family business, came to his rescue, drawing his Glock from the shoulder holster and pointing it squarely between the man’s eyes. The big man halted, the gun’s barrel an inch from his forehead. 

“Go ‘head, city boy,” he sneered. “If you got da guts—”

The Gypsy’s hand moved, amazingly fast for his size. Unfortunately, his aim was not good; as he attempted to grab the gun from Peter, one sausage-sized finger slid into the trigger guard of the gun, its girth inexorably pressing Peter’s more modest digit into the trigger. There was a shot. The giant man’s ugly sneer turned into a look of shock as the back of his skull and brains splattered across the tent wall. 

Peter was still trying to process what had happened when the screams began, galvanizing him into action. Pulling the gun from the finger of the dead giant, he looked around wildly. Bianca lay on the cot, splattered with bits of bone and brain, her expression as vacant as ever. There were yells from within the tent as interrupted men and women expressed their fear and concern. There was no choice. 

“I’ll get you out of here, Bi, I promise,” he whispered to her, unsure if she would hear him or if it would even register. Slipping out of the stall’s entrance over the dead giant, he fled down one of the corridors between the stalls, heading for the exit. The girl who had admitted him was standing in it, a machete in her hand. She had dispensed with the knowing smirk and her face was a mask of rage. 

“You murder a Rom, white man,” she hissed, raising the machete. “You will pay.”

Peter raised the gun, pointing it at her chest. “Step aside, lady, or those pretty tits of yours will be the next thing to get splattered.” 

Curling her lip, the girl stood aside, still holding the machete. Peter eased around her, trying to keep an eye on the machete and the rest of her at the same time. As he passed her, she spat at him. 

“I’ll remember that, babe. You’ll be hearing from me again real soon,” he snarled, slipping into the crowd of oblivious carnival patrons outside the tent who had somehow not heard the gunshot. 

Elbowing his way through the throng, Peter halted, panting, before the fortunes tent, his gun beneath his bloody Armani coat. The scrawny Gypsy eyed his hectic expression with what appeared to be a look of amusement. 

“Where’s my friend?” Peter demanded, looking over his shoulder toward the Pleasure Tent, sure the girl would be coming after him with the machete. 

“You friend ‘as gone,” the Gypsy said, spreading his fingers. “He say, he see you later.”

Peter pulled the gun from beneath his coat, keeping it low. “He wouldn’t do that, don’t take me for a moron. Now you tell me where he is, or—”

Behind the scrawny man, another mammoth Gypsy appeared out of the darkness of the fortunes tent. “Or what, slicker?”

Peter heard shouts from the direction of the Pleasure Tent and, performing an analysis of his odds, holstered his weapon and took off, shouldering his way through the crowd of increasingly agitated carnival-goers. He did not stop until he was in his Ferrari pushing sixty mph on his way out of the parking lot.

***

Matteo pushed into the dimly lit interior of the fortunes tent to see a thin old woman wrapped in shawls seated before a dark glass orb. She raised her eyes to his, and a smile crept across her mouth. “So, you come for your fortune?”

“I come for my girlfriend, Bianca,” Matteo said. He pulled his phone from his pocket and showed the woman his phone’s wallpaper. From the screen, Bianca was blowing a kiss with a bottle of tequila in her other hand. “She got her fortune read earlier tonight and now she’s missing.”

“I donno whatcha talkin ‘bout,” the woman said. Her smile widened. “If I read ya fortune, maybe we find hers?”

“Sure, fine, whatever, only her dad has told me he’ll cut off my nuts if I can’t find her so I really need—”

The woman threw up her hand, freezing Matteo in mid-sentence as the crystal ball’s surface flared bright blue. “Silence!”

She moved her long fingers over the ball, peering deep into its depths. Matteo waited impatiently, hopping from one foot to the other. Waste of time, this, he thought furiously as the woman whispered gibberish to the ball. Bianca’s father is going to have me castrated and I’m sitting here watching this old bat poke a piece of glass.

“Well?” he demanded when he could stand it no longer. 

The woman looked a moment longer and then raised her eyes to meet his. “Well what?”

“Where is Bianca?” Matteo’s voice was becoming shrill. 

“Ah,” the woman said, and shook her head. “I can no tell you dat. But I tell you, you be reunited wid her soon. You VERY HANDSOME!” she shouted this last, causing Matteo to recoil. 

“What the—”

“You VERY. HANDSOME.” She repeated, if anything, louder. 

“Listen,” Matteo said, his voice cracking as he pulled the Glock from his waistband. “If you don’t tell me where Bianca is—”

There was a rustling noise behind him. He half-turned in time to see an enormous man swinging a baseball bat at his head before the world exploded into blackness. 

“I tell you, Matteo,” Madam Zara stood, looking down at the prostrate form of Matteo. “You be seeing her soon.” 

The giant snickered.

“Good swing, Grog,” she said with a smile. “Take him to tent.”

***

The sound of a Ferrari caught Don Giletti’s ear and he turned, frowning, to glance out the window behind the desk in his study. Not just because he and his wife Lucia had bought it for their son Peter not six months ago, but because he had made the modifications to that engine himself, and he couldn’t mistake the sound of its tachometer reaching the red line. 

He turned back to face the room. His brother Rocco stood by the tray of amber-filled decanters, pouring himself a snifter of cognac. Giletti’s wife Lucia leaned against the front of his desk, her cosmetically perfect ass seated a few feet from Giletti. “I’m sorry, my dear, what were you saying?”

Lucia rolled her eyes. A few years Giletti’s senior, she sometimes felt as though she were a mother chiding her son. Turning to face him, she leaned against the desk, palms down. “The body trade is down all of a sudden, and you know that is one trade that is recession-proof. Something has changed, Lorenzo, and we need to figure out what it is. I have girls sitting idle at night.”

“My supplier is getting ratty as well,” Rocco said, coming back from the bar with a drink and lit cigarette in the other hand. “I told him I only needed half a container this week and he warned me not to let it become a habit, then hung up.”

Giletti snorted. “I try not to lose sleep over it.”

With a sudden bang, the doors to the study flew open, making them all jump. The men had their guns half drawn before their brains registered that their brother, Brando, towed his son Peter by the arm. The latter’s eyes were giant saucers, staring around though not seeing. Coming to a halt, Brando dropped Peter’s arm and slammed the doors shut, locking them. He strode forward and prodded Peter in the back, pushing him forward. 

“Go on, tell them!” he barked. “Spit it out, boy!” His face was red and his hair looked as though he had been pulling chunks of it out. Giletti had never seen his brother looking quite so deranged and felt a hint of an unusual emotion he was able to identify as fear. What the hell had happened?

“I—they—there’s a car—carnival, up the road,” Peter gabbled, still staring around as though he had never seen the place before. “They had—girls. Bianca. They—I—” Peter shivered mightily and wrapped his arms around himself as though he were freezing. 

“What de absolute fuck are you gabbling about?” Giletti roared, on his feet, fingernails unconsciously digging into the desk. 

“You’ve been wondering why the girl trade is down,” Brando said, striding forward and shoving Peter out of the way, who took no notice. “I think you’ll find it’s been down the exact length of time as a certain Gypsy carnival has been set up in the area. As near as I can tell, Peter, saw a tent set up as a brothel, and when he went in to, um, investigate, the girl they gave him…was Bianca, Lorenzo. They’ve got your little girl, brother,” Brando said, tears of rage standing in his eyes.

Gypsy Mob : Episode 2 / Don Giletti

Don Giletti stood at the window behind his desk, staring at the darkness outside his mansion. Behind him, the hulking figure of a man stood in one corner of the room, his features obscured. He may have been looking at the third man in the room, the one cowering before Don Giletti’s desk, cradling his right hand. The fingers of this hand were bent at odd angles and the middle finger looked to be pulled from its socket. The man’s breathing was harsh, the only sound in the room. 

“You ‘ave made me displeased wit’ you,” Giletti said, his voice regretful. “De only question left is whether or not to let you walk from here, boasting of your incompetence and lack of consequences.”

“Don Giletti,” the man whispered, straining to speak through a throat swollen by two enormous handprints. “I crave…I beg your pardon. Had I but known the territory was yours, I never—”

“It is ALL my territory!” Giletti thundered, turning from the window to fix the man with a cold stare. “De very ground you walk on is under our control for hundreds of miles in all directions. Yet you see fit to set up shop in what amounts to my front yard.”

“Yes, of course,” the man panted, his eyes straying to the silent figure in the corner. “Please, Don Giletti, let me prove to you my loyalty. Allow me the chance to do this, killing me will do no—”

“You are correct, death would hinder your chance at redemption. I only question whether or not your redemption is worth it,” Giletti said. He folded his hands before him, staring the man down. 

“Don Giletti, sir, I will be your most loyal, most trustworthy—”

“Tony,” Giletti said, interrupting the stammered protests of devotion. He had heard them all before. “Mr Sanders has pleaded his life, but cannot be allowed to walk free. Please give him a lasting reminder of our feelings for interlopers, that his loyalties never waver again.”

The man’s eyes grew huge and shot to the hulking figure which had come to life. Stepping out of the shadows was a huge man, easily over seven feet tall, in an immaculate black tuxedo. His head was bald as a cue ball, his hands the size of dinner plates. His face was an expressionless blank as he advanced on Sanders, the smaller man squealing with fear, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the slick tile floor. 

“Nonono Don Giletti no you don’t have to do that please no—” 

His words degenerated into gibberish as the giant man knelt beside the chair, seizing Sanders’ calf in one giant hand, his foot with the other. Tendons stood out on Tony’s massive hands as he twisted. 

Sanders screamed, an inarticulate sound of agony and horror as the bones in his ankle cracked in with a sickening wet pop. Tony twisted in the other direction, bringing more popping and screaming sounds from the man as his bones were neatly sheared from each other. Setting his grip, Tony pulled. The muscles under his tuxedo arms bulged and with a sickening sound of tearing meat, the foot of Albert Sanders was torn off in his hand. The wretched man’s screams pleased Don Giletti as he trimmed the end of a large cigar. 

“Thank you, Tony. Now please escort Mr Sanders to the door before he bleeds all over my floor.”

The big man lifted one of Sanders’ arms, placing it around his own massive shoulders and hiking Sanders to his foot. Dragging the sobbing man to the door of the study, Tony booted it open and dropped Sanders in a pile over its threshold. 

“You’ll see yourself out, Mr Sanders?” Giletti asked, lighting his cigar with a silver lighter. “Do try and make it outside before expiring. Good night.”

Tony shut the door, blotting out the man’s suffering. Going to a cupboard in the corner, he pulled out a mop, bucket, and bleach. Going to the French doors on one side of the room, he slid one open, taking the bucket outside to the expansive grounds, and hose outlet. 

Giletti surveyed the blood around the chair Sanders had occupied. A few buckets of bleach water and it would be as though it had never happened. Picking up the phone on his desk, he pressed a button to connect him to the local police station. The other end rang twice before it was picked up. 

“Giletti?” The voice was low and gravelly, hesitant and slightly fearful. 

“Yes, Chief Murphy, and if anybody else ever calls you from this number, I want to know about it,” said Giletti, blowing a perfect smoke ring at the ceiling. “I wanted to thank you personally for your information regarding the late Albert Sanders, it was most entertaining to speak wid him.”

“Of course, sir, you know anything I can do—”

“I do know, and I appreciate you doing it. Tomorrow there will be two tickets to the opera on your desk, along with your favorite whiskey. Don Giletti always rewards loyalty.” A second smoke ring joined the first. Behind him, Tony re-entered from the grounds, the bucket full of water. He closed the French door silently and set the bucket down beside the puddle of blood. Splashing a healthy portion of bleach into it, the huge man set to with the mop. 

“Thank you very much, sir, please don’t hesitate—”

Don Giletti hung up the phone, puffing on his cigar as he watched Tony mopping. 

“Once you are done wid de stain, find Mr Sanders and dispatch him cleanly, will you, Tony? His life no longer seems worth living.”

The man nodded once, never looking up from his work. 

Two raps came at Giletti’s door, light and reluctant. 

“Enter,” said Giletti, sucking on his cigar. 

Matteo entered, his eyes on the trail of blood. Behind him, Giletti could see the pile that was Albert Sanders laying in the hallway, having drug himself only a few feet before passing out. 

“Tony, dis blood puddle can wait. Please tend to what’s left of Mr Sanders before de stain in de hallway becomes permanent.” Giletti gestured with his cigar.

Obediently, Tony stood, leaving the mop in the bucket. Stepping carefully over the puddles, he walked around Matteo, who flinched noticeably as he neared. The big man turned, shutting the double doors softly behind him. 

“Matteo!” Don Giletti said expansively, leaning back in his seat with the cigar in his mouth. “How did my little girl enjoy de carnival?”

“Don Giletti…” Matteo said before trailing off, his mouth dryer than he could ever remember. The whole way back from the Gypsy encampment, he had been rehearsing what to tell his prospective father-in-law and had gotten no further than those two words. “Don Giletti…” he said again, once again coming up short. 

Giletti took the cigar from his mouth and frowned. “Where is Bianca, Matteo?”

“G-gone,” Matteo squeaked, his eyes falling again and again on the puddle of blood and bucket before him. 

Giletti stared at him wordlessly, the cigar describing lazy curls of smoke up to the ceiling. Matteo felt two inches tall. 

“Sir, she went to the fortune teller’s tent. I went…somewhere else, and when I came back to the fortune tent, they told me she had left. I could not find her anywhere and her phone goes to voice mail. I thought I should come back and tell you, sir, before much more time had passed.”

Giletti continued to stare, eyes boring holes into Matteo. 

“Sir, I’m sorry,” Matteo gabbled, now talking faster as though to buy himself time. “If you want me to sir I’ll go back and find her I know I can, maybe I just didn’t check closely enough because I thought maybe she could have—”

“Where did you go, Matteo, dat you left my daughter alone wid de Gypsies?”

Giletti’s voice was very quiet but it cut through Matteo’s babble, shutting the young man up with a snap as his heart sank. Very few had successfully lied to Giletti. 

“I—uh, that is to say, I went—”

“You have one chance to tell me de truth, young man. I would advise you to take it.”

The stories of Giletti’s responses to deceit came back to Matteo, that coupled with the blood on the floor compelled him to the truth, come what may. 

“I went to the Pleasure Tent, sir,” Matteo said in a rush, as though hoping hearing it quickly would be easier for the patriarch. 

“De Pleasure Tent,” repeated Giletti, still staring.

“Yes sir.”

“Am I correct in assuming dat is what it sounds like?”

Matteo’s eyes dropped. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled. 

“You mean to sit dere and tell me dat while on a date wid my daughter, you ditched her to go to bed wid a Gypsy prostitute and now have no idea where she is?”

Matteo was sure he was sealing his fate as he whispered, “Yes, sir.”

The Don’s face was a mask of cold fury as he stubbed the cigar out in a gold ashtray. “De only ting keeping you alive is de fact dat you did not try to conceal dis from me. I will consider de matter closed if you can produce her, tonight. If you cannot, Tony will have to get involved. You don’t want Tony to get involved.”

“No, sir,” squeaked Matteo, hardly daring to believe his reprieve. 

“Get out of my sight, Matteo,” Giletti’s voice was laden with disgust. “If I see you again widout my daughter—”

But he was talking to an empty room; Matteo had already wrenched the door open and fled. 

 

Gypsy Mob : Episode One / The Pleasure Tent

The Ferris wheel whirled as the midway lights flickered, lit by the secondary generator also powering the staticky sound system piping carnival music through the meager lane of tents pitched along a lane that may have constituted a midway. A few dogs begged at the hands of the well-dressed patrons lined up at the booths, but for the most part, the only scavengers were the Gypsy carnies. 

“Step righ’ up, hit the tits off da bull wid a dart, and win a stuffed monkey!”

“Ladies and gents, if’n youse can fill this balloon wid a water gun, you get a ticket for our private show featuring the stunning Ms. Gingerette!”

“Guess da number o’ clams inside th’ bucket o’ sand and you wins a million dolla! Okay, not a million, but ONE HUND’RD DOLLARS! Ladies and gents, how ‘bout dat! For th’ price of a pounda clams…”

Bianca’s eyes shined as the Ferris wheel’s cars swooped past her, the lights of the cars reflected in her eyes. “Matty, this is so much fun! I haven’t been to a carnival in… ever!”

“Don’t get carried away, Bi,” Matteo said, his hand tightening on hers involuntarily as a carny whirled by in a fiery cartwheel, somehow juggling the Earth and two flaming torches. “This isn’t a carnival, just a campground of Gypsies with a few rusty rides.” As he spoke, the Ferris wheel whirled behind him, neglected joints letting out a squeak with every car. 

“Spoilsport,” Bianca shot back, dropping his hand and flouncing ahead. Matteo cursed and followed her, shouldering his way through the people crowding the midway. He was amazed at the number of people in the Gypsy encampment. Didn’t these people realize that Gypsies were scum and would only bring them heartache? Grinding his teeth, he followed Bianca’s short-skirted ass as it weaved through the crowd. 

“Ooh, fortunes!” Bianca squealed, coming to a halt at a black-bordered booth studded with blue stars. A banner proclaimed “Your fortune for only $5.00.” Beneath it, a scrawny dark-skinned man with greasy hair and a scraggly mustache grinned, holding out his hand. Matteo groaned, coming to a stop behind her and catching her arm, bringing her to a stop. 

“Bi, maybe we should go find somewhere else to spend our money,” Matteo said, neglecting to mention that the last time she laid down any money for their extracurricular activities was the last time they had bought coke(months ago) and hoping that she would move on rather than costing him another ten dollars for unmitigated Gypsy bullshit. 

“Maybe you want to go on and spend your own money,” Bianca said, her voice clearly inviting him to go fuck himself. 

Matteo sighed, glancing around them for a diversion. His eyes fell upon a tent much larger than the others, a banner over its entrance reading “Pleasure Tent.”  His eyes widened as, with a yank, Bianca pulled her arm free from his gripping hand. With a vindictive look at Matteo, Bianca dropped a five-dollar bill and a single into the bowl before the booth. 

“Look, Bi, if you want your fortune so bad, go and get it,” Matteo said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “I’ll wait here.”

Bianca rolled her eyes before turning her million-dollar smile towards the carny. The greasy man smiled, vanishing her bills as though he had a conduit to another world. Turning to the side, he barked a word. Behind him, a wall of curtains they had not noticed parted and an old woman appeared, shrouded in ragged robes. Frizzy white hair surrounded her face as she beckoned Bianca forward. With a last vicious look at Matteo, Bianca disappeared behind the curtain. 

Matteo watched Bianca disappear into the fortune tent and rolled his eyes. It would be a long drive back to the Don’s mansion with her in that mood. With a sigh, he set his sights on the Pleasure Tent, the entrance attended by a Gypsy girl behind a wooden booth. She wore a long swishy skirt with the barest of tops covering her ample breasts. The fabric was translucent, making it abundantly clear that she wore nothing beneath it. Matteo felt himself stiffening as he walked towards her. The girl noticed him and smiled slyly as he approached. 

“Bitta pleasure?” she asked as he halted in front of her. 

“How much?” Matteo asked, glancing around and seeing no one to notice him patronizing the tent. 

“$100, you choose girl.”

Matteo put on his boyish charming face. “How about you?”

The girl laughed, the barest hint of disdain in it. “I not work inside. $100 and you make choice here.”

Fumbling, Matteo pulled his wallet from his pocket and extracted a bill. The girl made it disappear with the alacrity of the fortune teller before pulling a battered three-ring binder from beneath the booth. Opening it to the first page, she tapped the glossy color photograph of a pretty brunette. “She new. Just start tonight.”

“Do you have any blondes?” Matteo asked, glancing around again. 

“Accourse,” the girl said, selecting a bookmark and opening the binder to the section marked BLONDE. “Nonna them are…fresh as new girl.”

Matteo paged through the section, evaluating each prospect until one caught his eye. She had long blonde hair, down past her shoulders, full pouting lips and a haughty expression that made his groin twinge. He pointed. “How is she?”

“Well, I donno mysel’,” the girl said with a laugh. “But no complains. She very popular.”

Popular. Matteo knew what that meant. “Which is the newest blonde you have?” 

Leafing back several pages, the Gypsy pointed one out. “This one our newest blonde.”

Matteo gazed at the girl. Her face was lovely enough but the expression on it was vacant, the eyes a thousand miles away. “Is she… popular?” 

“Not as much, but you no sorry,” she said with a wink. 

Matteo moistened his lips. “I’ll take her,” he said, his voice husky. 

“You no sorry,” repeated the girl, coming around the booth and taking his arm. “Follow.” 

Matteo felt one full breast pressing against his arm and felt another twinge in his groin. “Are you sure you couldn’t work inside, just this once?”

The girl laughed as they entered the tent. “Sorry. But you be very pleased with Dora.”

As Matteo’s eyes adjusted to the gloom in the tent, he could see it was separated into sections by thick curtains. He could hear various liquid sounds, male groans and the slap of flesh on flesh. The scent of rut filled the air, swelling his member further. 

Leading Matteo down an aisle, the Gypsy girl stopped at one of the sections. Releasing his arm, she pulled the curtain back and gestured for him to enter. Peering past the curtain, Matteo saw the blonde girl reclining on a bed, nude, her eyes on him. With no expression, she gestured him forward. Glancing at the Gypsy girl, Matteo stepped forward, feeling the curtain fall into place behind him. 

Throughout their session, the girl’s blank face did not change, even when she took him in her mouth. Matteo was disconcerted but found that by taking her from behind, it rendered her expression immaterial. As he came, she let out a sigh, her only vocalization. 

Pulling out of her, Matteo spotted a roll of paper towels on a table beside the bed. Wiping himself, he buckled his pants, noting with unease that the girl had not moved, laying on her stomach with only her breath to show she still lived. 

“Well…thanks…” Matteo said, unsure of what to do or say. None of the other working women he had patronized had been so…lifeless. She continued saying nothing, so with a shrug, he pushed back the curtain and left the tent. 

The Gypsy girl was showing the book to another prospective client, her untethered breasts jiggling as she laughed at something the man had said. Her eyes met his, and she grinned. “Please come again, we have new girls very soon!”

“Right,” Matteo said uneasily. He escaped into the crowd, feeling dirty. Sniffing himself, he did not detect any smells that would arouse Bianca’s suspicions. 

Making his way back to the fortune tent, he was surprised not to see Bianca there. Walking up to the scrawny Gypsy at the entrance, he asked, “Is my girlfriend still in there?”

“No, sirrah. She gone.”

“Without me?” Matteo swore, not really surprised. 

“She very beautiful,” the man said, and grinned. “You lucky man.”

“Thanks,” Matteo mumbled, pulling his phone from his pocket as he walked away. Dialing Bianca’s number, a crease appeared on his forehead as it went directly to voice mail. Bianca NEVER had her phone off. 

“Hey Bi, where are you? Call me.”

Inside the fortune tent, the old woman ushered Bianca to a seat on one side of a crystal ball. Swirling her rags around her, she seated herself at the single stool opposite Bianca and steepled her fingers before her face. 

“Fortune a mysterious thing,” she said, her voice dry and thin. “It come with fame, herald it, be preserved within cookie, but nobody know where it comes from.” She tapped the crystal ball twice and its clear surface filled with gray clouds. “We may read it…here.”

Bianca leaned forward, entranced. 

With a wave of her hand, the woman plunged the room into darkness and leaned forward over the crystal ball, from which emanated a soft white glow. The shadows it cast over the woman’s face made her skull stand out, sinking her eyes into her head. For a moment, it looked as though across from her sat a grinning, skeletal ghost. Bianca let out a little squeak. The woman did not notice, leaning over the crystal ball as though she were reading a fascinating novel. 

“Ahhh young lady, you will go on to marry good, prosperous man. Your life will be everything you wished it could be…”

She trailed off. Bianca leaned forward, riveted. “Yes? What else?”

“I see you very beautiful,” the woman nearly shouted, and Bianca recoiled. “Yes, you be fine mother for your children and good wife to your husband.”

“Children?” Bianca said, her voice unnerved. “But I don’t want–”

“Ball has spoken!” the woman barked. “But I see you are very beautiful.” She nearly shouted this last phrase and turned her rotten smile upon Bianca. “Fates never lie.”

Bianca stood, her slightly shaky legs betraying her outward calm. “I will never breed,” she said, her voice haughty. “You have misread me, foolish woman.”

“Ah, p’rhaps,” the Gypsy said and leered. “If you wish, you go now.”

Without a word, Bianca turned toward the door to the tent through which she had entered. 

“Ah, miss, this way,” said the woman, gesturing to an arch in the cloth behind her Bianca had not noticed. “We must keep d’traffic flowing, yes?” She cackled. 

  Without saying anything more, Bianca pushed past the table and out the archway. She stood for a moment in the fresh air, savoring her relief from the heavily perfumed atmosphere of the fortune-teller’s tent. 

As she stood there, breathing, an enormous Gypsy man approached her. He grinned, showing teeth as rotten and black as the fortune-teller’s. 

“Miss, you very beautiful? Is what Madam told you?”

“Yes, and I don’t think it was worth what I paid her. I know I’m beautiful, I don’t need her to–”

Without warning, Bianca was hit from behind by a massive weight, sending her crashing to the dirt as a spray of red formed before her eyes. “Oh no, that’s blood,” she thought, as the ground rushed up to meet her and the world turned black. 

“You right,” said the huge Gypsy man. “She very beautiful.”

“She be perfect,” Madam Zara said, dropping the rock back inside the tent. “Now get her out of here.”

 

My Darling Dead : Bastards / Episode 13

Her husband had become just that. A husband, in name only. There were days she did not even see him, so busy was he flaunting his power over the desirable women of the court. More desirable than his queen. 

When the wizard came upon her at her window, weeping silently into a goblet of wine, he was uncertain. But she had imbibed enough already to unload her heart’s anguish onto him. As she wept, she sought solace in his arms. The wizard’s initial reluctance melted as she moved against him, carnal desire replacing sense, lust overcoming caution. 

Afterward, she had forbidden him to speak of it. It was a promise they both kept until she began to show. Fortunately, it was nearing the frost, nobody thought twice about the extra layers the queen now wore. Clothes only covered so much though and finally, making up a story to the distracted king, the queen took refuge in a cabin in the woods with two of her most trusted ladies in waiting. Upon news of his son’s imminent birth, the wizard set out for the cabin. He arrived just as the child made his first cry and, without a word, took the child from the queen’s midwife and vanished, the queen never even laying eyes upon her son. 

Zavier had clearly been waiting long to share this fact and the light shone from his eyes with the intensity of a bonfire. Orteg and Agathas both were stunned into silence. Zavier paced back and forth before them, gesturing wildly as he continued his soliloquy. 

“A bastard by the queen is nothing to anybody. My father knew that, as did our mother, Orteg. They saw to it that I was kept out of the way, a humble pageboy, and learned all I could from my father in the ways of magic, for the day when he would no longer be there and the kingdom required a leader. But as I watched it descend into more and more chaos, I became certain; the queen’s son would have no right over the throne in the eyes of the people, particularly in these troubled times. It would have to be a man who carries the blood of King Wendell himself, who would reunite the kingdom. 

“When I found you, Orteg, I thought my search had ended. Here was a simple, stupid man who would be easy to install as a figurehead, then direct him to do my will, by one means or another.” Zavier shook his staff. “Then Barris and his disgusting sister here decided to place before you an unthinkable choice, one that no father would have made. My entire plan would fall to ruins if you refused to ascend to the throne. I compelled you to dispose of your obstacles to the throne, but instead of accepting your destiny and becoming king, you had to start conspiring with that bloated sack of offal, Barris. I hoped to teach you a lesson watching him die, but you seem to be the same angry self-righteous peasant as you were born, and you have irked me overlong as it is.”

Color rose in Zavier’s face, veins in his forehead standing out as his face darkened. His eyes bulged and he looked quite demented. Orteg tried with all his might to move any muscle and only succeeded in twitching his nose. Agathas whimpered from the cage. Zavier’s eyes shifted to her. 

“Agathas. You have no reason left to live. You realize that, don’t you?” Zavier said, his voice sympathetic though his eyes lost none of their manic gleam. “You know I have to dispose of you as well as this fool or nothing will ever change.” Zavier began breathing heavily as he pulled out his polished staff, running his fingers over its contours lovingly. “For the kingdom. You understand.” He pointed the staff at Agathas. 

Without warning, a blinding light seared Orteg’s eyes. Unable to throw up a hand to cover them, Orteg screwed his eyelids together tightly, though the light continued to grow. Dimly, he could hear Zavier yelling and Agathas screaming. The light was so bright through his closed eyes it seemed loud, shouting in his ears and even though he could not see, he prayed for release…then it came.

Darkness. Orteg ventured his eyes open only to see more darkness. Gradually he heard the snuffling moans of someone laying on the ground nearby. This reminded him of his previous paralysis and he flexed a finger experimentally. It responded, along with its fellows. His entire hand and arm worked as though there had never been any interruption. He clambered to his feet, his legs aching. The darkness was fading and he could make out the room he was in once again. The light had been so bright it had drowned out the pitiful sunshine from outside. 

The moans came from Zavier, laying spread eagled on the floor on his back, struggling to move his lips to form words. Though he trembled with the exertion, no sound beyond his quiet moaning escaped his mouth. Orteg scarcely noticed Zavier though, his eyes were drawn to the fairy Liseem, standing over Zavier, looking more radiant and lovely than ever in her fury. Agathas was similarly gaping at her, making no effort to hide her awe. 

“Zavier, Son of Hespa, bastard child of the crown, you have disgraced the name of sorcery with your foul actions,” Liseem stated, not raising her voice though it filled the entire room and Orteg’s head rang with it. “Due to your haste to grow beyond your status, you shall henceforth be smaller than the eye may readily see, that you may observe the world you may not engage with. Those who do observe you will hate you upon sight and hasten to murder you.” Liseem spun away from Zavier’s horrified expression, raising her hands to the sky and calling out a strange word. 

The light exploded in the room again. Orteg and Agathas screwed up their eyes at once but the light was not nearly so merciless this time. There was a popping sound and the smell of sulfur. The light winked out and Orteg opened his eyes at once. Zavier was gone. Where he had lay on the floor scurried a large cockroach, antenna twitching frantically as it sought to avoid the humans in the room. It rushed at Liseem, then seemed to think better of it, making for the door. 

“My lady?” Orteg asked, a smile on his face. 

“Please,” said Liseem, her own smile radiating light. 

Orteg raised his boot, bringing it down with all the force he could muster. The cockroach crunched under his boot, sending a stream of yellow goo shooting across the floor. Orteg ground his boot back and forth, the crunching sound beneath his foot giving way to the whisper of dirt on stone. When he raised his foot, there was nothing but a wet spot. 

Orteg Bluenote was crowned king of Dandoich before an enormous crowd. From his viewing point, he could see nothing but his new subjects as far as his eye would reach. As the crown was set on his head by Agathas, the roar of the crowd took his breath away. A tear came to his eye, speedily wiped away, lest he show weakness before his new subjects. Agathas stood at his side, her part in the death of the king’s children having been overlooked in the fate that befell Barris. As the king’s adviser, and with Barris out of the way, as the senior member of the council who had run the kingdom for years, she was uniquely positioned to be invaluable to the inexperienced king. Her mind was already feverishly at work, thinking of how best to turn her new position to her advantage.

After the coronation ceremony, the new king was in his chambers, still attempting to grasp the changes in his life over the last few weeks. His family was gone but he had more wealth and power than he could ever imagine. With the blessing of the fairy, he felt invincible. Pouring himself a glass of the finest wine in his chamber, he toasted the window and the moon pouring its light into the chamber. 

Midway through sipping the wine, Orteg heard a noise from just outside the window. It was a scratching sound, as though a cat were sharpening its claws on the stone below the window. As Orteg listened, it became clearer and more pronounced. A snuffling sound, then a high-pitched giggle floated through the window, chilling Orteg’s bones. His innards turned to ice as a hand, thin and bony, with long filthy ragged nails, crawled up over the windowsill. It was attached to an arm, as scrawny and filthy as the hand. Eyes appeared over the sill, dark slits in the dirty, pointed face twisted in a demented grin. 

The brilliant light appeared in the room, making Orteg and the rat creature shield their eyes. As it faded, Orteg saw that the rat creature had entered the room, along with a second and he could see a third scrabbling at the window and (dear Gods) it sounded like there were more working their way up the wall. A figure had solidified in the center of the room, coalescing out of the whiteness into the fairy who had saved him. 

“Liseem!” Orteg gasped. “Thank the gods you are here! You must help me! This creature—”

“These creatures,” Liseem broke in, a nasty grin upon her face, “Will be your doom, Orteg Bluenote.” The fairy touched the face of the first rat creature, delicately pressing her finger against the sharp teeth in the creature’s face. Instantly, all the rat creatures froze. The sound of those climbing the tower ceased. There was nothing but the fairy’s voice.

“Many years before your birth,” Liseem said, turning to face him, “I was in love with a king. The king of Dandoich in fact. Your father.” She fell silent for a moment, looking at Orteg with no kindness in her eyes. “You are of his seed, yet I do not recognize you at all. You are nothing like the king.”

“But—Esemli!” Orteg gasped, his hands clasped before him in an unconscious prayer. “She was in love with the king and was killed by the princess! She has been dead longer than I have been alive! Everyone in the kingdom knows that story!”

“This is where the story ends,” whispered the fairy. “I, Liseem, am the fairy Esemli.” 

A series of images rushed through Orteg’s head. The fairy and the king rutting in his receiving room before being interrupted by the queen. The king groveling as Esemli listened from behind the door, listening as he cast their love aside instead of keeping his promise. Faster, images of the kingdom’s descent into chaos flashed through his mind. Rat creatures feeding on garbage, peasants, each other. Crops rotting on the vine as farmers barricaded themselves in their houses, afraid to tend to the harvest. Esemli laughing, laughing, laughing. 

The images stopped, but the laughing continued. Liseem’s laughter merged into that of Esemli and Orteg knew that she spoke the truth.

“No…” whispered Orteg, feeling as though all blood had drained from his body. 

“Yes,” hissed Esemli, her hatred changed the fairy’s beautiful features into an inhuman rage. “And now, Orteg Bluenote, you shall die carrying on the suffering of your lineage. The kingdom’s spiral into darkness will continue!”

With mad laughter, the fairy vanished. Sound regained its control on the world, the scrabbling sounds of a rat person clawing its way into the room registering first on Orteg’s ear. He realized with a start that his back was against the stone wall opposite the door. The first creature crawled across the floor, its jerky skittering motions sending spasms of horror up and down Orteg’s spine. The thing kept grinning, nose twitching, as it advanced. Orteg tried to make a break for the door, but the creature was too fast, scuttling between Orteg and the door with a drooling grin. There were more crawling in through the window. Cowering back against the wall, Orteg moaned, helpless, frozen in terror as the creatures came for him. 

Agathas had been waiting to visit the new king in his chambers until after he had time to get himself sufficiently drunk. She intended to ask for less oversight on his part as she conducted the day-to-day business of the kingdom, in essence giving her free reign to govern as she saw fit. Under Barris, she had learned from the best and had no interest in the new monarch sticking his nose in her affairs. 

She was lingering in the anteroom below the king’s chambers when the screaming began. The king’s hysterical shrieks brought all within earshot running. Throwing open the door, Agathas and the castle staff beheld the new king, his eyes and throat wide open, gaping in the direction of the door, hand stretched out, even as the humanoid thing that now resembled a rat snuffled and scrabbled at Orteg’s chest, seeking his heart as blood from his neck bathed them both. Other rat creatures prowled the room, looking in corners and under things for their next meal. At the sound of the door, they stopped as one and stared.

Agathas screamed, drawing the attention of the rat creature away from Orteg’s lifeless body. Like a spider, the creature scuttled toward her, eyes twin pinpricks burning brightly amid the face of blood. The next moment, it was flying back, impaled by a long silver spear. Blood ran from its mouth, grinning even as it spluttered for breath. The captain of the guard pushed past Agathas, striding across to the creature. It snarled at him, coughing blood all over his boots as it did. 

The man’s face wrinkled in disgust. In one smooth movement, he drew his sword and struck the head from the creature’s shoulders. It flew across the room, striking the stone wall with a sound like wet sand. Falling to the ground, the jaws gnashed twice, then were still. Looking around, Agathas saw the last rat creature scuttling out the tower window and heard a thud as it hit the ground below. 

“The king is dead,” Agathas said, recovering her composure speedily. “Let it be known throughout the kingdom that the Council once again reigns supreme.” A smile spread across her face. “Inform the council members that their leader has summoned them at once.”

“At once, Honorable Prefect,” said the captain of the guard, sheathing his blade.

“Queen, I think you’ll find, Captain,” Agathas said, smiling an ugly smile. The captain of the guard was only taken aback for a moment, before bowing to her.

“My liege,” he said, already scheming his own rise to power. 

There would never again be another monarch to rule the kingdom. The fairies would see to it. 

My Darling Dead : Bastards Episode 12 / Long Lost Relations

---

Barris was dead. 

Orteg had awoken one morning to see what remained of the man who had orchestrated the murder of Orteg’s children laying immobile with his usual coating of insects. He had gotten used to the inexorable rising and falling of the hollow wood sitting atop Barris’ chest and its sudden stillness drew his eye immediately. 

Every day Orteg had been given a bladder of water and some days he was given stale or moldy bread which he wolfed down before they could change their minds and remove the crusts. He knew that with Barris dead, they must come for him today; now that Barris was dead, the torture of watching the man be infested and rot from the inside was over. But what would become of him? Would the wizard prove merciful? What would he have to gain by setting Orteg free? 

The answer to which he kept inexorably returning was: nothing. 

Orteg’s black musings were interrupted by the sound of rushing wind, though the trees and grass were still. A piercing light split the early morning air, causing Orteg to throw up his arm and turn away, cowering against the wall of his cage. The sound of the wind tapered off to nothing as the light faded, leaving absolute silence in its wake. Even the creatures of the swamp were silent. 

“Orteg, son of Wendell. Attend me.”

The voice was female, rich, and cultured. Orteg’s eyes opened wide and he turned. The woman standing before him was tall and willowy, silver hair shining from simple braids. A white garment like a toga was wrapped around her from which seemed to emanate the same silvery light. 

“Who–who are you?” Orteg asked, shaking. 

“I am the fairy Liseem,” she said, a smile on her face. “I am come to release you from this captivity, that you may take your rightful place as king.”

Orteg blinked, his stomach spasming as it growled abruptly and the world spun around him. “I’m sorry, you’re who? What? I’ve finally started hallucinating, haven’t I?”

The fairy smiled and extended a finger. The door to the cage simply went away. One moment it was there, the next it had ceased to exist. Orteg gaped. 

“Come, son of Wendell,” Liseem said, holding out her hand. 

Orteg held his own hand out. Touching the fairy’s skin which was softer than anything he had ever experienced. She smelled like life. He smiled at her. “You’re beautiful,” he said. 

She laughed. “Prepare yourself,” she said. 

“For what?” Orteg never got the chance to ask. There was a tug at the hand the fairy held and the world around him blurred into dark nothingness. Wind roared in his ears and he got the sensation that there was nothing at all around him. He squeezed and felt Liseem’s hand. He tried to yell but before he could, he was standing in the forest beside Liseem with the castle’s towers visible through the trees. 

“We have arrived,” Liseem said. “Observe yourself; you will find you are no longer weak from hunger and thirst.”

With a start, Orteg realized she was right. He was certainly hungry, but no longer felt as though he might pass out at any moment and, while he felt thirsty, he would not have sold his soul for a cup of water. “Where have we arrived?” he asked dumbly. 

“Your birthright,” Liseem said, gesturing toward the castle. “You have all you require. You only lack the christening of a true king.”

Orteg looked at her blankly. She smiled. “Kneel, son of Wendell.”

He did as she bade, bowing his head. She placed one cool hand on his head, sending chills down his spine. 

“I christen you King Orteg Bluenote of the kingdom of Dandoich. May your reign be as long and happy as it is possible to be!”

A dazzling silver light shone from her hand, enveloping them both. Orteg’s eyes were squeezed tight shut as he heard the rushing of wind but felt nothing. As it died, he noticed that her hand was gone from his head. He opened his eyes a fraction and looked around him. He was alone in the forest, as though there had never been another soul. 

He raised his eyes and took in the castle, still a great distance but near enough to taste. He recalled his hours there, the respect he had been shown, earned or not. He remembered Barris, the man’s bloated visage smirking at him, that same face half-eaten by vermin, pleading for water. He remembered his children being bundled into the castle by a patrol with as little care shown for their well-being as a sack of unwanted kittens. He remembered seeing those same bodies born out of the castle, toward the burying ground. Looking at his hands, those same appendages which had stolen the lives of his children, tears rose to his eyes. He clenched them, taking a deep breath, and began to move. 

Agathas cowered in the corner of her cage, cold iron bars pressing into the naked folds of flesh she normally kept covered by her robes of state. Now, naked, dripping and shivering from the buckets of ice water that had been dumped on her, she watched Sir Antion manipulating himself beneath his trousers, breathing heavily as he stared at her. Another bucket of water sat beside him, this one steaming hot. Her eyes went from his flushed cheeks to the bucket and back in endless cycles. 

Sir Antion grinned, thrusting his hips in her direction as he massaged himself. “You wet enough yet, Prefect? But you look cold. Shall I warm you?”  He made as if to grab the handle of the bucket. 

“NO!” she shrieked. Dropping to her knees, she laced her fingers together. “Please, Sir Antion, don’t burn me…don’t burn me…”

Antion dipped a finger into the bucket of water. Wincing, he pulled it out, waving his finger in the air to cool it. “Mighty hot water, this is,” he said with a grin. “Castle cooks had it boiling all morning. Wouldn’t you care for a little—”

The door banged open. Antion and Agathas both jumped, Antion spinning in place, his foot colliding with the bucket of hot water, sending a flood of scalding liquid cascading across the chamber. Antion scarcely felt it though, occupied as he was by the giant broadsword now protruding from his middle. 

“For my family, you foul scum!” Orteg shrieked, pulling the broadsword clear of Antion’s stomach before running him through once again. The knight screamed, a gout of blood pouring from his mouth as he grabbed at the sword blade, slicing his fingers to the bone as he attempted to pull it out. Orteg pulled the sword from Antion’s belly once again, the latter falling to his knees as he stared down at the ragged holes in his stomach. He looked up just in time to see the massive broadsword blade swinging toward him. 

Sir Antion’s head rolled across the wet floor, splashing in the cooling puddles of water before coming to rest against the cage containing Agathas. The head’s lips twitched into what could be construed as a grin. One eye winked at her once, then was still. Agathas screamed, curling up in the corner farthest from the severed head, unable to take her eyes from its glassy stare, terrified that it would move again. 

“Silence!” roared Orteg, splashing across the floor to the cage. “By the gods, woman, silence your infernal tongue, before—”

“Someone hears the racket you are making and comes to investigate?”

Orteg spun as the door slammed shut. Zavier stood before it, his face a malevolent blank. Before Orteg could react, he felt all the strength draining from his limbs, like water from a pierced gourd. He sank to the ground, fighting to maintain his upright posture and helpless to do so. He gazed up at Zavier from the stone floor, filled with equal parts of hatred and dread. 

“So,” Zavier said, “Now that you won’t be trying anything foolish, we can have a little chat before I am finally rid of you. How did you like my little arrangement for Barris? A friend in a far-off country told me about that method of disposal but I’d never had an opportunity to try it out for myself.”

Orteg’s stomach rolled as his mind flashed back, unbidden, to Barris, grinning with his face that was not a face and drooling as the insects infested him from the bottom up, continuing their life cycle relentlessly inside the body of the dying man. Zavier saw the look on Orteg’s face and smiled. 

“Yes, I thought you would enjoy that. You know, Orteg, all you had to do was take the throne and do what I told you. Had you done that, you would have been the lord of the land with nothing to concern you but which wench you wish to service you. Instead, you allowed yourself to be manipulated by this piece of trash—” Zavier waved at Agathas who cringed as though he had struck her, “and her brother, leaving us where we find ourselves now.” Zavier sighed. “It didn’t have to be this way. You should never have listened to Barris.”

“Barris is… is dead?” Agathas whispered, her voice hoarse. 

“Of course he is,” Zavier said, contempt dripping from his words. “The great fat lump was consumed by the smallest inhabitants of the swamp, with plenty of time to think about his actions, let me assure you. A big man like that probably won’t be fully claimed by the swamp for months…”

“Why, though?” Orteg asked angrily. “Why are you going to this effort?”

Zavier was still for a moment, staring at Orteg. “Do you have family, Orteg?”

“None, they have all been murdered!” Orteg spat from his position on the floor. Try as he might, he could still not move a muscle below the neck. 

Zavier waved a hand, dismissing Orteg’s murdered family. “Family by blood, not a wife or your disgusting spawn.”

“Never,” Orteg said. “My mother died when I was very young and I had no siblings.”

“A lie you have espoused your entire life, without even knowing it,” Zavier said, a mad light in his eye. “You are the bastard son of the king. However, he was not the only one to seek solace outside of his holy union. King Wendell’s wife, the Queen Hespa, had her own child out of wedlock, with the wizard Sapius. Orteg, I am your half-brother. I am the queen’s son!”

My Darling Dead : Bastards Episode 11/ Inevitable Guests

“’ere now, ain’t you a pretty one,” came a voice, followed by a chorus of laughter. Orteg’s head jerked around to see the torturer and his assistants approaching, each bearing two large amphoras. “We was thinking youse lot might be gettin’ ‘ungry so we brung ya some breakfast.” He sloshed one of the amphoras. 

Barris groaned and turned his head away as far as he could. “No… no more milk, please.”

“Now now, we brung ya this special and it ain’t perlite to refuse gifts from your hosts,” the torturer said in a simpering tone, brushing the flies from Barris’s face as his assistants guffawed. “Minky, ‘old his mouth open.”

Once the six amphoras had been emptied into and over the hapless Barris, the head torturer moved to Orteg’s cage and tossed a water bladder through the bars. “Eat ‘earty, mate,” he sneered. “But none for ‘im, unnerstand?” He jerked his head toward Barris. “Less’n it’ll be the worse for you.”

“No,” murmured Orteg, his trembling hands fumbling with the bladder spout. It was warm and brackish and he could feel little shreds of skin from the bladder on his tongue, but no drink in his life had ever been sweeter. 

There was a rumbling, then the sound of diarrhetic voiding. “Fuck!” screamed Barris. Orteg could hear the wretched man’s cramping stomach all the way over here. He closed his eyes, pulling his jerkin up once again. It was going to be a long day. 

Worst by far was the midday heat, during which, seemingly every insect in the swamp seemed to appear in the little clearing to investigate. Some of them were interested in Orteg, but for the most part, their attention was focused solely on Barris. Try as he might, thrashing his head from side to side and blowing frantically did nothing to stop their assault. Orteg did his best to avoid watching Barris as he suffered but sometimes was unable to tear his eyes away. The sound of his tortured bowels continued regularly until Orteg thought he would go mad with the stench which somehow found its way under his jerkin. 

When dusk fell, the worst of the insects left Barris alone and he was reduced to tearful babblings that Orteg could only partially interpret. There were pleas, curses, and nonsensical ramblings. He complained of the flies which had crawled down his body, attracted by the warm moist fecal air between the two hollowed-out shells. He bemoaned how asleep his arms and legs were, after being held in that position for so long. He cajoled and threatened, begged and demanded, that Orteg throw the half-full water bladder to him. Orteg said nothing to this, seeing its futility and fearing retribution by the torturer when he presumably returned the next morning with more milk and honey. 

“…just a little water, nobody’ll ever, if you just—OW!”

Orteg’s head jerked up from a light doze. “What? What’s happening?”

“A rat! A rat!” screamed Barris. “A rat just climbed up the log and bit me on the lip! I’m bleeding! Help! You have to help me!”

“I can’t!” Orteg screamed back, dancing from foot to foot and rattling the cage door. “I can’t get out of this cage you stupid fool!”

“Help! You have to get me out you have to you HAVE TOOOOO…”

Barris began thrashing about with a frenzied strength but the logs did not budge. Orteg could hear the squelch beneath the bottom log and a wave of excrement-smelling air wafted his way. Fighting to control his gorge, he looked up at the sky. Through the haze of tree limbs, he could see a star. 

After panicking for a time, Barris ceased, panting as he licked at his wounded lip. “Can’t fall asleep,” Orteg heard him mumbling. “Got to stay awake. They won’t come if I’m awake. They won’t come if I’m awake. They won’t come—”

He was still repeating this when Orteg fell asleep. 

A bloodcurdling scream rent the night, wrenching Orteg from his dark dreams. Leaping to his feet, he hit his head on the cage. Stars burst in his vision and he grabbed at his head as another scream shot into his ears. Turning to face Barris, Orteg saw something he would never forget. The moon had come out from behind a cloud and illuminated a large mass of squirming bodies completely obscuring Barris’s head. At least ten huge rats squeaked and crawled all over themselves and Barris, licking and chewing the sweet sticky residue from his face. His cries did nothing to deter them, Orteg saw, as one of the rats stuck its head into the screaming mouth, cutting off its cry for a second. There was a crunch and a brief squeal as Barris bit its head off and continued screaming. 

Orteg turned away from the dim shape thrashing around in the silver moonlight, sinking to the bottom of the cage and putting his fingers in his ears. He looked for the star he had found earlier and found solace in the hundreds which had appeared around them. Eventually his ears grew numb to the screams and he drifted off into a slumber, deep and dreamless. 

Orteg stirred, yawning, from some of the best sleep he could recall. It was very still, and the sun streamed through the gnarls of tree branches, illuminating the mist which rose from the swamp. Bars of rising steam were danced and played between the trees, the light creating beauty wherever it touched. Turning, Orteg caught sight of Barris. His stomach contracted violently and seemed to shift inside him as he stared in horror. 

Barris’s face had largely disappeared from the nose down. His teeth were displayed in a hideous grin of agony which made Orteg’s testicles shrivel. His nose had been whittled down to a stub and the nostrils were gaping canyons into his head. The eyes were as yet untouched and the flesh around one of them quivered as a nervous tic made it jump. 

“By the gods,” breathed Orteg. 

Barris’s eyes shifted to Orteg and he grinned at his comrade. Or maybe it was a grimace. “They’re inside me.”

“What’s inside… not the rats?” Orteg asked, his stomach rolling even more at this fantastic but easily visualized horror. 

Barris shook his head, just once, side to side. “Bugs.” He nodded downward, his grinning face a horror show. “They smelled my shit… they came… I couldn’t stop them… now they’re inside me.” A tear ran down his macerated face as his hoarsened voice neared panic again. “They’re inside me… laying their eggs, I can feel it…” He winced and shifted. “I pray to die, but the gods are not listening.”

That night, the rats returned and removed most of the flesh they had not already consumed, ignoring the ragged screaming. Orteg dreaded the visage that would greet him the next morning. When the sun finally came out, Barris’s entire head had been chewed bald and red, several layers of skin missing. The next night they took one of his eyes. Barris had very little use for the other one at this point however as his slide into delirium accelerated. His sentences descended into madness as the insects invaded his festering flesh, moving upwards through his digestive tract. He was reduced to nonsensical babbling, and, most disturbing to Orteg, periods of laughter which could not be stopped. Between these were periods of silence where Barris often stared at the ground with what remained of his face, drool dangling from his mouth on a long string. Every day the torturers brought more milk and honey, but after several days they stopped the charade that the doomed man would drink it and simply dumped it on his head for the vermin. Orteg tried not to look. 

 

My Darling Dead : Bastards Episode 10 / Milk and Honey

A small room on the ground floor was filled with the sound of drugged snoring. Two wooden cages sat at either end of the room, made of the firmest wood known to the kingdom, lashed together with dried sinews. Inside one cage was Barris, on his back, snoring with such enthusiasm that his lips and cheeks flapped together. In the other cage was Orteg, not snoring quite as loudly but making his best showing. 

With a snap, the bolt to the door was drawn back. The hinges groaned in harmony with Orteg as he sat up, wincing at the noise. Barris jerked awake, drool dripping from his chins as he struggled into a sitting position.

Zavier swept into the room and knelt between the two cages, grinning. “You pathetic inferior fools! Did you really expect to deceive me?”

Orteg was terrified but had never backed down from a fight. He managed to adopt a scornful tone, even from his position on the floor. “Do you expect us to be so terrified of you that we don’t even try?”

Zavier’s face grew red. With an invisible quickness, a dagger appeared from within his sleeve. He tapped it on the bars of Orteg’s cage. “Orteg, I can do horrible things with this blade. Would you like to see?” He rapped the cage of Barris. “I can show you on this piece of offal,” he said, and swung the blade to point at Orteg. “Or I can show you on yourself. Maybe once you see how many pieces into which you can be divided, you will wish you had held your tongue.”

“Please,” Barris said, his voice quavering. “If you have to, kill him. Torture him. Not me. Just…not me.”

“You spineless worm!” Orteg spat. 

Zavier laughed. “For once, I agree with you,” he said, returning his dagger to whence it came with one quick movement. “For that astonishing display of cowardice, Barris, you shall be the first to die. And you—” Zavier said, spinning from the former’s horrified face to spear Orteg’s expression of relief. “—will watch him. You shall be there, hale and hearty, for every step of his death. Who knows, if it goes well, perhaps I shall dispose of you in the same fashion, Orteg. If not, I have an entire tome of excruciating dispatches at my disposal.”

The cage of Barris was opened and he was dragged, screaming, from its interior, pleading that he would comply with whatever was asked, even as he was taken to a nearby swamp and put into the hollowed-out shell of a log which resembled a canoe. It was only then that his cries ceased, only because the torturer’s head was swollen with drink from the night before and insisted upon a gag for the screaming condemned before proceeding. 

Once the man had been gagged, an identical but smaller canoe-shaped log was placed atop him. The torturer’s assistants guided the unfortunate’s arms and legs through the holes which had been bored in the smaller log shell while Barris tried to yell, plea and bargain through the gag. Large stones were piled atop the smaller shell, pinning the man neatly between the two. The torturer pushed at the smaller log shell and felt a little give. 

“Can yeh breathe?” he asked, and yanked the gag free, holding it ready should the fool resume his racket.

Barris’s chest hurt, but he could breathe, and he answered “I have money. Gold coins, buried in a swamp. I’ll take you there. You can have it all. Please…”

“’e can breathe,” grunted the torturer, and signaled. Two of his assistants hurried forward, each carrying a large ceramic amphora. The first handed it to the torturer, who took it and tilted the mouth of the amphora toward Barris. 

“Drink,” he said, and tipped. Barris was drenched in a tide of thick, sweet liquid. He sputtered and gasped, turning his head this way and that, spitting and wheezing. 

“’ere,” said the torturer, lowering the amphora and gazing at Barris threateningly. “Either you drink it, or we ‘old your gob open an’ you drink that way. Now, drink.”

The torturer poured. Barris drank. It was sweet and cold, fresh milk with a taste of honey. For a moment, Barris’s qualms were forgotten and he drank greedily. The torturer tipped the amphora up still further and Barris’s eyes widened. There was a lot left. He tried to speak, but the thick sweet milk slopped into his mouth and down his chin. He choked, spraying the torturer with white drops. The man frowned, lowering the amphora. “’ere…that’s fuckin disgusting. You do it again, it’ll be the worse for you.”

“I can’t,” gasped Barris. “I can’t drink anymore.”

“You’ll drink it,” the torturer said grimly. “Or it’ll be worse still.”

An hour later found Barris sobbing as his mouth was held open, a sixth amphora of honeyed milk being tipped, overflowing, into his yawning mouth. One torturer held his nose, forcing him to swallow. Pinned between the two hollowed out logs, his stomach bulged, distended with gallons of milk. His stomach groaned as he swallowed yet another mouthful, excess trickling down the sides of his head into his ears, sticky and wet. He sobbed, gasping in air as the amphora mouth withdrew, only to sputter and gasp as it was upended over his face, the thick milky honey coagulated at the bottom of the amphora splattering like excrement all over him.

“That does it for now,” the torturer said, turning away and tossing an amphora to the side with indifference. “Good ‘nuff for a start, leastways.” His assistants snickered as they followed, pausing only to pick up the amphoras. As their footsteps faded, the only sound left was that of Barris’s ragged breathing as he labored to catch his breath. Orteg had watched with revulsion, neither moving nor speaking in his cage lest he draw the attention of the torturers. 

Barris’s face was red and sweating beneath the drying glaze of milk and honey. He licked his lips and gasped “Water…my entire soul…for some… water…”

Orteg said nothing, and wondered, if he could get it for Barris…would he?

A fly settled on Barris’s face and he blew a puff of air up his face, dislodging it, but only for a moment. It returned, bringing one of its brethren. Another joined. Barris’s breath refused to move them this time. “Curse these…flies…” he grunted. His face screwed up in agony and the sound of diarrhetic voiding echoed from the interior of the two logs. In a moment, the smell reached Orteg.

“By the gods…”

“I can’t help it!” Barris moaned over the sound of more voiding. “All that milk…an’ honey…I didn’t want it, but they kept—”

Orteg turned away, raising his jerkin over his face and replacing the smell of sick feces with his own spicy aroma. Behind him, Barris’s body continued its purge. Glancing back, Orteg could see Barris’s face speckled with more and more flies as the smell attracted them. Averting his eyes once again, Orteg breathed as lightly as possible into his makeshift mask, hoping the night would bring relief. 

By the time dark had fallen completely, Orteg had begun to wish half-heartedly for death, for both of them. Barris’s innards had not ceased in their efforts and every quarter hour or so another explosion would come from beneath the log, bringing with it another wave of ghastly stench. Barris moaned and sobbed, treating Orteg to a litany of complaints, so detailed that Orteg felt as though he were being tortured as well. 

So the night went, until the wee hours of the morning, when Barris’s lamentations had ceased and only snoring came from that part of the swamp. Orteg lay down in his cage, thanking the gods for this brief respite, and shut his eyes. 

“Orteg! Orteg!”

Orteg heard his name being screamed as though from afar and forced his eyelids to open. He squinted at the sun. Nearly up. Already it was warm. 

“ORTEG!”

The panic in the voice brought him to his senses as quickly as a slap to the face. Wrenching his face from the sky, he looked at the cage opposite his own.

“Barris? What is it? What’s—”

His voice stopped, his mouth frozen in horror. Barris had completely disappeared under a seething black mask of insects, crawling and buzzing and every one dedicated to obtaining the sticky residue completely covering him. 

“By the gods!” breathed Orteg, his flesh crawling. 

“Orteg! Help me!” Barris was hysterical. “They’ll eat my face and I can feel them crawling down! Help me! Help meeeeee!” His voice atrophied into a pleading mewl, completely forgetting that they were both imprisoned and no help was to come. Not to them, not to anyone. Orteg could only look on in horror as the black mask moved and shifted over the features of the wretched man. 

My Darling Dead : Bastards Episode 9 / Conscious Acts

The king’s chamber was filled with snores, loud enough for Zavier the wizard to hear from the other end of the corridor leading to the door from behind which they emanated. The wizard wore a smile as he strode its length, not pausing as the door flew open before him. Orteg lay spread-eagled on his bed, head hanging off one side, drool dripping from one lip. As Zavier watched, Orteg let out another mighty snore, severing the line of drool and sending it to splatter into a sizable pool. 

Zaiver pointed at the prostrate king and snapped his fingers. At once, Orteg was yanked into a sitting position in mid-snore, his eyes flying open with a startled grunt. 

“Uh! Wha—who—what happened?” Orteg’s hand went to his head, his eyes clenching back shut against the pounding of his temples. “Where am I?”

“The king’s chambers, sire,” Zavier said, his smile turned down to a lower wattage. 

“What happened last night?” Orteg asked, his face scrunched up as he massaged his aching head. 

The wizard’s smile widened. Pulling his staff from beneath his robe, he swirled it before him, plunging the room into darkness, despite the bright sun streaming through the windows. In the middle of the room, a large silver ball appeared. It grew transparent, then figures appeared, solidifying into Orteg watching his children arrive via the guards Barris had sent out. 

Orteg’s mouth dropped open as he watched his confrontation with Antion and Barris, his fury so great that the ache in his head was completely forgotten. “How dare—how dare they—” he spluttered, unable to articulate his rage. 

The real Orteg watched with growing horror as his past self entered the bedroom to which Barris and Agathas had taken his children. Watched as he pushed past Agathas and knelt to strangle them. When he snapped the last child’s neck, the real Orteg vomited, a great red glut reeking of sour grapes and bile. 

“You—” the real Orteg screamed, before being cut off by another retch that brought up nothing but pink gruel. He was screaming at nothing though. The room was empty. 

Hearing a sound, he looked around, just in time to see the coupling of Barris and Agathas before the figures blurred, the ball grew silvery once more before vanishing. Cheerful sunlight streamed in through the windows once more. 

***

Orteg kicked open the door to Barris’ chambers and strode into the room, his teeth clenched, stomach churning with rage and the horror of what he had seen. Barris looked up from his well-laid breakfast table, his fat features frozen in surprise, a ham falling from between his jaws. “Highness?”

Orteg decked the man, his fist sinking into the flesh surrounding Barris’ face before connecting with bone. With a howl, Barris hit the floor as Orteg continued pummeling him. 

“You fat shit, why would you put forth that condition?” Orteg howled, kicking Barris repeatedly as the latter curled up on his side trying to avoid the blows. “I would have left and returned to the forest, never to set foot forth again, rather than harm my children. Even for the crown!” he screamed, planting one foot squarely in Barris’ gut. The huge man wheezed. “The wizard would not have it and bewitched me. Did you honestly think I could do what you saw?”

“For the crown—” choked Barris. 

Orteg’s face was nothing but disgust as he withdrew his foot. “I am glad you and your disgusting sister enjoyed watching me murder my children, for your time to pay for it has come. That is, if you do not want the entire kingdom to know of your incestuous proclivities and you wish to have a prayer of returning things to the way they were before that miserable wizard showed up in my tavern with talk of royalty and riches and ruined my life!” His voice had risen to a scream. “Are you ready to listen?” He punctuated this last with another kick at Barris’ ample stomach, nearly losing his balance as his foot sunk into the big man’s gut. 

“Yes! Yes!” sobbed Barris, gasping for air. “Your Majesty, I crave your pardon!”

Orteg stopped his assault, breathing heavily. “You are, Barris, without a doubt, the most repulsive individual I have ever laid eyes on. If I didn’t need you, I would have no hesitation in sharing your secrets with everybody I met so they would have no choice but to murder you for me, just on general principles.”

Barris said nothing, busily attempting to regain his own breath. He hurt all over from the beating he had taken but did not feel anything was damaged. His ample padding had absorbed every blow with ease. His ego had taken the hardest hit. For the first time, he felt small and inferior in the face of the king. 

“The wizard,” Orteg said, walking back and forth in front of Barris’ prone form. “It’s the wizard. He made me murder my children. I don’t know what he wants but that cannot be allowed to stand. But he is powerful. I will need your help, Barris. If I do not get it, a tar and feather party will be the best thing you can look forward to.”

“My liege,” Barris wheezed, the kowtowing tone in his voice making him sick to his considerable stomach. “I live to serve.”

“Yes, yes,” said Orteg impatiently. “What resources have you to bring the wizard to heel?”

“You are the king, Sire, you have but to command the guards and the wizard shall be clapped in irons.” Barris said, keeping his tone respectful lest more kicks fly. 

“Idiot!” spat Orteg. “You have seen evidence of the wizard’s power, three times as I murdered my own children without a second thought. You think he would hesitate to use it on the castle guards?”

“You are speaking then of subterfuge, Sire,” Barris said, righting the toppled chair and collapsing into it with a grateful sigh. 

“Obviously,” Orteg said. “It must be done on the sly or the wizard will see it coming.”

“Poison, it would seem, would be the logical choice, Sire,” said Barris. “The wizard does enjoy his drink.”

Orteg could find nothing wrong with this suggestion. “How?”

“I will summon him to my chamber,” Barris said. As he expounded, back into the familiar territory of deception, his breathing steadied, his many chins ceasing their tremble. “I will offer him a full-time position at court. He will accept, and I will pour him a glass of wine. He will drink it, and cease to be a problem. I have done it before, many times.” He tapped a ring on one chubby finger. “This contains enough shredded blackbane to kill a reindeer. Half the amount would put paid to the wizard easily.”

“Are you certain?” Orteg asked, his voice firm. “What if he does not accept? Do not underestimate the wizard, Prefect.”

“He will accept. You will see. He is nothing I have not faced. Power-hungry men always grab before they think.” Barris levered himself with difficulty out of the chair. “You should depart, Sire. I will summon you when the deed is done.”

“You will summon me? You forget to whom you speak, I think.” Orteg’s voice held a hint of cruel amusement. “You will come to me, the moment the deed is done, or I shall have your head.”

“Of course, my liege.” Barris bent a knee as far as he was able, dropping his eyes. Orteg snorted and walked out, slamming the door behind him. Barris stood where he was for a moment, breathing heavily as he weighed his options. He crossed to the door and bolted it, checking first to see if the corridor was deserted. 

Going to his bar, Barris brought out a bottle of fine wine, a burgundy so dark it was almost black. Two silver goblets were set on a tray beside the bottle of wine. Extending the ring on his smallest sausage finger, Barris carefully levered open the ring’s red gem to reveal a blood red powder the consistency of sand. He upended the ring over the left goblet, tapping the back of his finger. A slight wisp of smoke rose into the air from the grains rubbing against each other as the sand whispered into the goblet. Barris held his breath until it dissipated. It would not do to breathe the smoke. 

Without warning, the bolt to the chamber door shot back with a bang. Barris whirled, his heart in his throat as the door swung open. Zavier stood framed in the doorway, his hood down, a smile of good cheer on his face. He raised a hand with awful casualness.

“Honorable Prefect Barris, how finds thee this evening?” Zavier beamed as he stepped over the threshold into the room. Behind him, the door slammed shut and bolted itself. 

Barris forced a practiced smile onto his fat features. “The very man I wished to see, delivered unto me in the flesh!” He clapped his pudgy hands. 

Zavier made a little bow. “As I sat, deep in meditation, it came to me that my presence was needed, Prefect. Naturally I hastened to your side at once.”

Despite his unease, Barris felt his ego expand at the wizard’s subservience. “That’s mighty fine. Yes, the very man, yes indeed. You know, the kingdom has been without a wizard at court since time out of mind and if you would see fit to join us here, it would be a privilege to have you.” He dropped a huge wink. “I daresay the council can find another seat at the table.” A wide smile pasted to his blubbery lips, Barris waited, trying to ignore the crawling sensation in his stomach. 

Zavier stood for a moment, speechless, before dropping to one knee and bowing his head. “My talents are at your disposal, and that of the kingdom, Honorable Prefect.”

“Excellent news!” Barris cried. “Come, a toast to your appointment!”

“You are too kind, Prefect.”

Barris did his best to conceal the shaking of his hands as he removed the cork, keeping his body between the goblets and the eyes of the wizard. As he poured wine into the poisoned goblet, the little wisp of smoke rose once again. Once again, Barris held his breath. 

“Honorable Prefect, what became of Orteg?” Zavier asked. 

Barris let his breath out slowly as he poured into the other goblet. “I have not seen him this day. Perhaps he is abed still.”

“Perhaps.”

Barris turned, holding tightly to the harmless goblet on the right. He held the left goblet out to Zavier, who took it. Barris raised his glass. 

“To the kingdom!”

“To the kingdom,” Zavier agreed. 

Barris felt his fingers twitch as he drunk deep from his own goblet but he was so intent upon Zavier that he scarcely noticed. Zavier downed his glass in one mighty swallow and hurled the glass against the wall where it vanished in an explosion of fire. Barris sputtered, spraying wine every which way. Zavier roared with laughter as Barris wheezed, wiping wine from the crevices of his fleshy face. 

“Just a little trick of the trade, my dear Prefect,” said Zavier, the smile falling from his face as though by magic. Barris felt his heart sink like a dead sparrow. The poison should have been enough to decimate a full-grown man within seconds. He was positive he had given Zavier the correct goblet. But then why did he feel so…

“Much like the simple matter switching spell I performed as you drank from your goblet. You were in fact drinking the wine from my goblet as I drank the wine from yours.” Zavier smiled at him. “Simple but useful. Most of my spells are that way. Like the one which allows me to see what is happening in any room at any given time. It appears Orteg and I are both using the perversions of you and your sister against you. It is most thoughtful of you to have provided us with such a large and useful bit of leverage.”

Barris felt his stomach dropping further and further, the awful realization that this was the end growing larger along with the darkness which enveloped his vision. He crumpled to the floor, twitching. Zavier produced his staff and tapped Barris on the head. Immediately his twitching ceased and his breathing evened out. 

“You’ll live,” Zavier said, a mad light in his eye. “But you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Orteg paced the king’s chambers, the overwhelming gold décor in the room disturbing his eye. He had never liked gold, but now that he was king, he supposed it was de rigueur. Still, the yellow light reminded him of the color of baby excrement. 

A knock at the door jerked his head around. “Enter!” Orteg called, striding toward the door. 

The door swung open, framing Zavier in the light emanating from the corridor. 

“Wizard!” Orteg exclaimed. Dread and hatred shot through him. Barris should have disposed of him by now. “What brings you here?”

“Lies, my King,” Zavier said, striding forward. Orteg instinctively recoiled from him. Zavier’s eyes were wild and his nostrils were flared.

“Lies?” Orteg ventured. 

“Lies!” Zavier screamed, bringing his staff forward and down onto the ground with a mighty crash. There was an explosion of darkness from Zavier’s staff, rushing at Orteg like a hurricane. Before he could react, there was nothing but blackness.

My Darling Dead : The Bastards – Unconscious Acts

Moonlight fell through the single barred window of the jail cell atop the castle’s west tower. A thin rectangle of it moved slowly across the floor as the hours passed, finally illuminating the rightful king of Dandoich, curled up on his side in a fetal position. A trickle of dried blood streaked the side of his face from where the ruby pommel of Sir Antion’s sword had struck him. His unconscious body shivered from the night’s cold which also seeped through the one window high above. 

Far below, Barris and Agathas had the three children taken to a large bedroom on the ground floor for the evening. The eldest had seen nearly three summers while the youngest was barely half a year old. Barris and Agathas had not the slightest idea what to do with children, and had immediately sent for the three best nannies in the castle to look after them. The nannies fed and bathed the children and dressed them in clean clothing from the castle nursery. The youngest was unable to do much more than lay on the stone floor, swaddled in cloth, looking around with wide eyes. The middle child was almost two and together with the eldest child, made the room echo with their shouts and laughter as they played with a stuffed jester provided by one of the nannies. 

When the youngest child began to cry, a nanny picked her up and held her close. Noting the little one seemed cold, the nanny moved nearer the fire. As the little body warmed, the cries stopped. The nanny found the old bear skin rug they had come in, and, thinking that familiar smells and textures may be comforting, fashioned a little nest near the fire for the youngest. In a trice, she was asleep. When the boys tired, more bear skins were summoned and before long a large furry place had been established before the fire, three children sleeping on it as though they had lived there all their lives. 

“Look at them, Barris,” Agathas said. “Like little angels.”

“They will be, one way or the other,” Barris muttered. “No matter what that lout Orteg does, we cannot let them live.”

“Of course not.” 

Above, in Orteg’s cell, a rattling at the door echoed in the small stone chamber as a key was inserted in the lock. The deadbolts shot back with a bang and Zavier entered, his black robe swirling around him in the moonlight. He stopped and looked at Orteg’s immobile form with an expression of amusement and disdain. He prodded Orteg with one boot. Orteg slept on. 

The wizard’s staff tapped the floor once, twice, a third time, then touched Orteg on the forehead.

“Rise,” Zavier said. 

Unbidden, Orteg’s eyes opened. He clambered to his feet and stood, eyes staring sightlessly at the wall in front of him. Zavier waved a hand before Orteg’s face. Orteg did not flinch, nor did his eyes. 

“Go,” Zavier said and waved his staff in the direction of the doorway. 

Orteg’s face did not change under his sightless eyes, nor did they move as he walked sure-footed across the cell and out the door. After giving Orteg a prudent lead, Zavier followed. 

Orteg walked down the spiral stairs, never missing a step and turned right at the corridor at the bottom. After several more twists, turns and stairways, all made with no hesitation, he came to a bedroom door on the ground floor. Making a fist, Orteg pounded twice upon the door. After a moment, the door creaked open. Barris stood there, his bloated face grotesquely lit by torchlight. 

“Your Highness,” said Barris, his tone one of surprise. “We did not expect—”

“The children.” Orteg said. His voice was devoid of any inflection. 

“They are here, Sire,” Barris said. He observed the lack of movement in Orteg’s eyes with some interest. Barris had seen this lack of movement before in enchanted individuals, and he opened the door for Orteg. “Won’t you come in?” 

Orteg moved forward, his unmoving eyes scanning the room, zeroing in upon the pile of bearskin rugs and the three little ones asleep on it before the large fireplace. Agathas stood in front of them, looking as surprised by Orteg’s appearance as Barris. 

“My Lord King,” she said, with the hint of a curtsy. “We just succeeded in putting them to—”

Orteg shouldered her aside, not looking at her, causing her to stagger. Her bewildered face fell upon Barris. The look of elation on his own features told her much. Quietly, she stepped back from the fireplace as Barris closed the door softly and moved to join her. He slipped an arm around her, fondling her breast as Orteg sunk to his knees on the bearskin. Barris and Agathas held their breaths as Orteg reached down and put both hands around the neck of the eldest child. 

Zavier stood outside the locked door to the chamber containing the children, their father and the two prefects. There was not a sound from inside. The wizard’s face was lit by a smile. There was a green flash as a stone he held in his hand ignited with an emerald light burning deep within. The light turned clear and inside the stone he could see the occupants of the room, moving in real-time. Zavier watched as Orteg methodically strangled his two eldest children before snapping the neck of the youngest as though he were dispatching a chicken. Getting to his feet, he turned and walked past Agathas and Barris, opening the door just as Zavier melted into the shadows behind it. Still not present behind his eyes, the king shuffled down the hallway, back to the king’s chambers.

Zavier waited in the shadows for some time, watching the figures of Barris and Agathas in the emerald stone. Finally, he marched forward, stowing the stone in his cloak as he did so, and threw the door open wide with a bang. 

“Honorable Prefects!” barked Zavier, striding into the room and slamming the door behind him. He turned to face Barris and Agathas on the bearskin rug, grinning as they moved awkwardly to cover their nakedness. He stared, eyes wide and mad as they pulled their clothing back on, breathing heavily, darting their eyes at the bodies of the three children, now arranged against the wall like an audience for their coupling. 

“This will be the talk of the kingdom for years, don’t you agree, Barris?” Zavier said, his voice light and musing though malice shone from his every feature. Barris cursed the wizard mentally as he continued. “For some time now, it has been known to me that you and your sister Agathas have been having relations, Barris, but until now it has been of no consequence to me. Now, I have reason for wanting your bloated behind out of this castle, and I daresay that those you have governed so harshly for so long would perhaps be sufficiently moved by your incestuous ways to make an example of you. As for you, Agathas—” Zavier grinned at her, so much like a shark she flinched. “It will reflect very poorly on you if it is known that it was your idea to use the bodies of three dead children to simulate an audience for your coupling.”

“What do you want, wizard?” Barris asked, his voice filled with anger and fear. 

“If you are never seen nor heard from again, there would be no reason for me to say anything to anyone,” Zavier said, extending a hand. “The choice is yours.”

My Darling Dead : Bastards – Episode Seven, Crown and Children

Orteg was drunk. Ensconced in the king’s chambers, he had been supplied with a bottle of wine so far removed from the ditch liquor he usually could afford that his taste buds could scarcely cope with it. He lolled on the private throne, drinking from the bottle, wine slopping down his chin. Zavier stood at the window overlooking the kingdom to the east, listening to wine dripping from Orteg’s face.

“King!” he slurred, waving the bottle. “I rather like it. Now, Zavver, you said you’d be staying around?”

“If it is the king’s will, Sire.”

Orteg nodded vigorously, taking another drink. “I need a magishan around, thas for sure. Who knows when things’ll get all bollocksed up.” He squinted at Zavier. “Can I make you my adviser?”

“The king may do anything he wishes, Sire.”

“Then I hereby pronounce you my Royal Adviser,” said Orteg, and giggled.

“Your Majesty bestows a great honor upon me,” the wizard said, bowing his head slightly. “Might my first suggestion be an official proclamation, lest the council members become threatened by my position and hasten to remove me.”

“Yesh! Of course,” Orteg cried, waving his wine goblet. “None shall dare say a word against you, Zavver, because if it wasn’t for you, I’d still be in that miserable tavern, with a miserable life, wishing every day for death–”

“Your pardon, Majesty,” Zavier said, and gestured out the window. “But unless I am mistaken, trouble comes yonder.”

“Eh? Wha’ trouble?” Orteg heaved himself up from the throne and joined Zavier at the window, shouldering him out of the way.

“A party of guards is returning to the castle, Sire,” said Zavier, moving from his spot. “Unless my eyes deceive me, there appears to be a bundle containing three small children carried betwixt them.”

Orteg lowered the bottle, squinting in an attempt to bring the scene below into greater focus with only marginal success. “I can’t see. Whatsit you—”

The world shifted before him, things far away rushing toward him as his feet stood still. With a yell, he threw up an arm to block everything crashing into him.

“Your Highness, you have nothing to fear, I have merely enhanced your vision,” Zavier said, his voice respectfully amused. “Look again.”

Orteg opened first one eye, then the other in amazement. He watched one of the guards slide to the ground from his horse, so clear he was able to see the light reflecting off the beads of sweat on the man’s brow. He looked to the bundle they carried beneath them and his brow furrowed. He was about to speak when a single tousled head worked its way free of the brown bundle.

“My son—!” Orteg gasped. “That bundle is from my home, made of the bearskin rug upon my floor! How came they hither? Wizard, explain!”

There was no answer. Furious, Orteg turned to see the room empty. The wizard had vanished.

“Well done, Sir Antion,” Barris beamed at the leader of the guards as the man walked in, the large brown sack slung over one wide shoulder. “The mother did not make it in, then?”

“She met with an unfortunate accident, Prefect,” Antion said, a nasty smile on his face. “Would you like to meet your captives?”

“Please,” said Barris, his smile wider than ever across his jowls.

Antion grabbed the bottom of the sack and upended it, sending three little figures tumbling out onto the floor. They whimpered, clutching each other, as they stared into Barris’s meaty features.

“Children,” Barris said, keeping his voice low and soothing. “Little ones. You have nothing to fear from us. Your fate will be decided by another.”

The door banged open and Orteg came lurching in, breathing heavily. “My children! What are you—”

“Daddy!” one child cried. Orteg took a step toward the children, still huddled on the bearskin rug. In a trice, Sir Antion’s sword was at Orteg’s throat, stopping him in his tracks.

“My lord king,” Barris said, his smile now so wide, both sides were in danger of meeting behind his head. “My liege. I have a proposition for you.”

“I will hear any propositions after you have released my children, Prefect! Unhand them at once!” Orteg snarled around Antion’s swordpoint. The latter smirked.

“Not possible I am afraid, Highness, as my proposition includes these three adorable children just as they are.”

“By the gods, unhand me and free them at once or I shall—”

“I offer you a simple choice, Sire,” Barris said loudly. He poured a goblet of wine from a nearby tray and sipped it daintily. “The crown or your children? You must give up one. Choose now.”

Orteg gaped. “Are you telling me… that unless I adjudicate the throne, my children will be murdered?”

“Murdered, done away with, put out of the way, removed, however you wish to phrase it.” Barris waved his glass. “The point is, you cannot have both, and you must choose now.”

“My children… but where… where is my wife? Where is Dashani?” asked Orteg, his voice distant as his brain struggled to comprehend what was happening.

“Yes, Antion, where is the Lady Washburn?” Barris said, his smile huger than ever. “I confess I am curious as well what became of the good woman.”

“That choice has already been made for you, Majesty,” Sir Antion said, his smile nearly as wide as Barris. “She attempted to escape and I was forced to dispatch her.” He tugged at the crotch of his armored trousers, thrusting his hips. “Your wife is—was, a beautiful woman. I confess, I could not control myself.” He laughed at the look on Orteg’s face. “Be comforted, she was no longer alive at the time.”

Orteg let out a roar and would have been upon Antion, sword or no, had the latter not thumped him on the head with the butt of his sword, the heavy ruby sending Orteg into darkness with no more racket.

“Did you really penetrate his wife after you killed her?” asked Barris, fascinated.

“Twice,” Sir Antion said, and grinned. “I did not even get to tell him how the second time I used the wound in her throat.” He licked his lips. “Still warm.”

My Darling Dead : Bastards – Episode Six, Summons

Dashani, wife of Orteg pushed the hair back from her face and tugged at the knot holding the bandage to her gangrenous leg. Ignoring the smell and the pain, she cinched up the knot and turned back to the stove. Stoking the fire within, she stirred the mixture of corn and water she had been boiling for over an hour, softening it for her children who had been blissfully asleep beneath the bearskin rug. For the hundredth time, she leaned back from the stove, looking out the window and up the path for Orteg.

Instead of her husband, she found six large men coming up the path on horses, clad in the black armor of the castle guards. Their spears were tall and sharp, their faces cruel beneath the helmets. Dashani felt her stomach sink into her feet. She dropped the spoon in the pan of corn and limped across the room to her children, reaching them just as the door crashed open. The children, wakened by the noise, cried beneath the blanket as the soldiers stomped into the room, three of them leveling spears at the family.

“Dashani Washburn and children?” said the leader, his face a hard blank.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? Why–?”

The butt of the leader’s spear struck Dashani in the leg on her bandage, bringing a fresh welling of blood forth to redden the dirty cloth. Dashani screamed in agony as the leader bellowed in her face

“Are you Dashani Washburn and are these your whelps or are they not?” The point of the spear swung around to poke her in the throat. She gulped back her screams as blood trickled from the wound in her throat. “By the gods, woman, answer me now or all four of you will perish for the time you have wasted me.”

“I am she!” Dashani wailed, her voice cracking as the children screamed beneath the bearskin rug. The leader swung the spear away from her throat and barked a harsh order in another language to the rest of the men. Four of them grabbed each corner of the bearskin rug, heaving mightily as they brought all four corners together with a twist, locking the three children in a bag with its edges neatly tied. The muffled cries from within pierced Dashani as the fifth soldier leveled his own spear at her.

“Move,” the leader said.

Dashani was bullied out the door, nearly falling from the stairs to the ground but catching herself on her injured leg, which nearly buckled. She turned to see the soldier carrying the sack which contained her children sling it over his horse and seat himself in the saddle behind it. The leader swung himself onto his own horse with a quick practiced movement and before she knew what was happening, she had been pulled forcefully up behind him. He wrapped her arms around his chest and turned his head to speak.

“We ride to the castle. Hold tightly. If you make us stop, you will regret it.”

He shouted a command to the other soldiers, now mounted, and heeled his horse in the ribs. The horse reared, Dashani clutching in terror to the leader’s armored chest. He nudged the horse again and it galloped down the trail. Behind them, Dashani could hear the thunder of the other horses following them. She closed her eyes, resting her head against the impassive back of the man, and waited for the pain in her leg to stop.

Over the course of that long ride, Dashani tried several times to talk to the man, shouting questions in first one ear, then the other, in case he was hard of hearing. Each time she was met with silence. The last time, the man turned his head just a little and the look he gave her was enough to motivate her to stop trying.

They went on and on, over bridges spanning muddy creeks, past withered orchards with hornets buzzing around their heads. At one point, they were followed by several rat people who scurried along the sides of the road after them, making strange shrieking sounds between them. Dashani felt a moment’s fear but the leader just urged his horse on to greater lengths and they were soon lost.

Finally, they rounded a bend and the castle loomed in the distance. The sight of it awoke the terror Dashani had been keeping barely at bay. She fixed her eyes on the castle, the dread in her rising as it got closer. Whatever had caused them to be summoned here, it could be nothing good.

The leader felt her grip on him loosen, then it vanished. Looking around, he saw the foolish woman rolling in the dust before pushing herself to her feet as well she could and diving into the bushes lining the path. With an oath, the leader wheeled his horse around, waving for the other men to continue on their way. Skidding to a halt, he slid to the ground, listening to the hoofbeats of the other soldiers fade. Slowly the silence of the countryside reasserted itself. He stood perfectly still, listening to the sound of birds and the little brook nearby. A puff of wind rattled some leaves. Time passed. Then, a twig snapped. The leader grinned and moved toward the edge of the road.

Dashani crouched in the tall brush lining the road, down several feet in a ditch which ran both sides of this section of road. She was about ten feet off the road and did not dare to make another move. She could not see the road but she couldn’t hear anything. Still, there was no way the man had not stopped to retrieve her. His threat made her blood run cold. She could not believe she had jumped. She could not remember doing it. What had she been thinking?

She was terrified to move, afraid he would hear her. Still, she couldn’t stay here forever. She turned her head. Seeing the brush thin slightly, she moved toward it. Beneath one foot, a twig snapped. She screamed curse words and admonishments inside her head as she held her breath and waited. Several moments passed and she had almost worked up the nerve to try again when she heard the whinny of a horse.

Dread fell upon her like a scalding blanket. As she turned to run, a slim silver dagger flashed through the mid-morning sun and stabbed her through the throat. She fell to her knees, clutching at the handle protruding from her neck as blood spurted from the wound in strengthening gouts. Trying to gasp, she coughed on her own blood, spraying the foliage before her, painting it a bright red. Fighting for breath, she saw the leader materialize out of the bushes right in front of her. She had time to marvel at how quiet he was for such a big man before he pulled the knife from her throat.

“I warned you, foolish woman,” he said. He knelt beside her and pulled her head back, raising the knife. Her eyes grew wide and her bloody mouth managed to form the word NO before the knife’s keen edge sliced all the way through her windpipe.

The man watched her bleed, her eyes wide as she struggled for breath and her hands covered the gash in her throat, mindlessly attempting to stem the flow of blood as her movements grew weaker. He licked his lips and his breathing grew ragged as he surveyed the rest of her. Except for that nasty leg, she was in pretty good condition. He felt himself grow hard as he watched the light fade from her eyes, color rising in his face as it drained from hers. It would be a nuisance to remove his armored leggings, he thought, loosening his belt, but it would be worth it.

My Darling Dead : Bastards – Episode Five, Sharing the News

The sound of hoofbeats roused the castle guard from its late-night lethargy as two horses came thundering up the path. At the gate, the riders halted their steeds. One of the men hallooed the walls, a low echoing sound.

“Who goes?” came a voice from atop the wall, thick with drowsiness.

“The rightful king!” Orteg started to bleat, a kick from the wizard silencing him at the last moment.

“We have a message for the council,” called Zavier, his voice low. “Let us enter, in the name of the kingdom!”

“You have not told me yet who goes, sir,” returned the wall guard. Murmuring voices behind him told of numerous others. “And none enter here without at least that. I’ll ask you again, what your names be.”

Orteg saw Zavier sigh before throwing back his cloak and producing a long staff of polished wood, shining but very dark. Zavier slammed the butt of the staff into the ground beside his horse, sending a tremor through the ground to which only his horse seemed immune. All the men atop the wall went to their knees, fighting to stay upright. Orteg felt as though he had consumed some of the southern ditch liquor which made the drinker go blind and dumb.

“You have twice asked and twice been refused,” Zavier roared, his patience at end. “You will regret pursuing this line of questioning and you are advised to desist and withdraw after opening the gate to allow our passage. This you will do, now.”

The power Zavier had summoned retreated, allowing the guards atop the wall to clamber to their feet. One of them dropped below the wall, and in a moment the gate began to grate open. Zavier stepped forward, muttering, “Honestly!” Orteg followed, attempting to look in every direction at once.

The wizard strode through the courtyard, nearly deserted at this hour, taking one of the doorways with no hesitation. Orteg followed as they turned down a long corridor with many doors opening to each side. Again, with no hesitation, Zavier made for the large door at the far end of the corridor.

Barris started as the door slammed open. A tall figure in a black robe strode in, a small man with an ugly face scuttling in his wake. The tall figure marched up to the council table without a pause and threw back his hood. His long dark hair flew around his face.

“Council members,” the man said, his voice projecting. “I am come to inform you that the time of your rule is at an end. I have the rightful heir to the throne beside me.”

The council was silent, furtive glances darting back and forth between them all. Agathas looked at Barris, her eyes afraid. His were cool as he addressed the wizard.

“Your authority is not recognized, wizard. You come before this council with no papers, no identification and only an unsubstantiated claim that this cringing cur–” he gestured to Orteg, “is the rightful king of Dandoich. Either provide evidence or be thrown from the castle walls for your impertinence.”

“You need not believe the word of the wizard Zavier, when you can see what he speaks is true!” retorted Zavier, the shining staff sliding from its place beneath his robe. Zavier rapped it twice on the chamber floor and spun in a circle, the staff before him.

Immediately the room was drowned in darkness. Before the council members could do more than give a surprised yelp, light blazed into the room in a brilliant flash. They saw Orteg, a tiny baby but unmistakably the same, being born to the Washburn family, saw the tuppence the king provided every month, the loose lips of the father sealing the family’s fate, the child being raised with only part of the truth, resenting the crown he was to inherit, being confronted at the tavern by Zavier…

The room was plunged once more into darkness, then bathed in its natural light as Zavier ended the spell and returned everyone to the present.

“Kneel in the presence of your king,” Zavier commanded, his voice hard. “Unless you feel you have a claim to the throne, this man is your lord and master. Hail, Orteg, King of Dandoich!”

Zavier dropped to one knee before Orteg and bowed his head, the picture of subservience. One by one, the council members rose from their seats and dropped to their knees before Orteg, who had never felt so uncomfortable in his life. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Barris and Agathas sinking slowly to their knees, their faces carefully neutral.

“Er…” Orteg said, raising a hand. “Thank you, all. I’ll be wanting to keep you all on as advisers, of course, since I don’t know the first thing about running a kingdom…”

“Your Majesty!” Barris said, his voice fruity as he struggled to rise his bulk to his feet, Agathas doing likewise beside him. “Let me be the first to welcome you to the castle, and to many years of a fruitful reign of peace and prosperity. And may I just say…”

Barris droned on for a while before Zavier was able to get a word in edgewise and shepherded the new king away from his would-be advisers. The moment the door was shut behind Orteg and the wizard, the smile fell from Barris’ face like a landslide. The council members looked at him, fearful.

“Tell no one of this meeting,” Barris said, his voice low. “Back to your quarters, all of you. Someone send the captain of the guard to me.”

The captain of the guard had been in charge of the castle guards and the dungeons since before Barris had been old enough to know his own name. When Barris first saw the captain, he was a gnarled, wizened old man who somehow radiated a terrible strength. Now, decades later, the captain of the guard who appeared before him looked exactly the same as the one he remembered from his youth.

“Sir, I have need of your unique skillset,” Barris said, offering the man a goblet of fine wine. “I would have your assistance, and your silence.”

The man took the goblet, looking at Barris with no expression. Slowly, he raised the goblet to his lips and took a sip. Barris held his breath.

The man let the silence drag out a few more moments before extending a hand, palm upward. “I am waiting.”

Barris let escape a sigh of relief, then began speaking.

 

My Darling Dead : Bastards – Episode Four/ Council Feasts

The Honorable Prefect Mosh Barris had been running what remained of the kingdom of Dandoich for many years now, ever since he had been slim and a deceptively wide-eyed and innocent youth. He had swindled and conned his way into a position right beneath the then-acting ruler, a duke with pretensions and enough soldiers to back them up. Barris attached himself to the duke and fed off the man’s power for many years, growing more bloated as he did so like any true parasite. When Barris had absorbed enough of the ruler’s power, the man was found dead in his bed by an apparent self-inflicted dose of poison. Only Barris and an apothecary several townships over had any idea otherwise. 

Once Barris had eliminated the apothecary, he wasted no time in claiming rulership of the kingdom, citing his years of experience as the late duke’s advisor. Learning from the example of the many dead kings to precede him, Barris was too wise to declare himself the reigning ruler de facto. Instead, he immediately appointed a council of twelve, with himself at its head, equally matched between the sexes. The decisions of the council would be reached democratically, he explained in those early days to the skeptical kingdom, and would no longer depend on the whims of one man. What Barris failed to divulge was that the council was made up of his own circle of like-minded individuals with whom he had come into contact as the parasite of the previous ruler. This council sought pleasure and had no qualms treading upon the citizens of the kingdom to obtain it. 

It was to this council that the rat woman who had overheard Zavier and Orteg in the forest was brought. The chamber door burst open and two large armored men carrying large pikes in one hand, one of the rat woman’s scrawny arms apiece in the other, her frail body elevated between them. Her biting and scratching glanced harmlessly off the armor with squealing sounds that rose hair on the back of Barris’ neck. 

“Guards!” boomed Agathas Pyle, to Barris’ right. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” She waved a roast turkey leg in the direction of the rat woman. “Such a creature as this near puts me off my meal.” She belched and tore off another chunk of the turkey leg. Barris chuckled. Several other council members tittered. 

“We crave your pardon, Honorable Prefect,” said one of the armored figures, his voice echoing out of his helmet slits. “This creature did assault the very gates of the castle and raise such a racket that we were compelled to respond.”

“Well, what is it doing here?” Barris asked impatiently, seizing a roast turkey leg of his own and taking a huge mouthful. Bits of flesh sprayed from his mouth as he continued. “The rat creatures are to be flogged until they are driven away, or executed. Why bring it to the council?” He chewed slowly, juice dripping down his chin. 

“Honorable Prefect, it spoke your name.” One of the armored guards gave the rat woman a firm shake, rattling her head on her neck. “’ere you, stop that fussing and say what you said to us.” 

The rat woman’s vocal cords had not been properly used in many years. This one (a long-time tavern wench in her past life) had spoken far more words than many in her days serving customers. She had managed to retain just enough of her speech to be able to relate what she had heard from the treetops. As she did so, the color drained from Barris’s face, his turkey leg falling unbidden to the table. The council members muttered to each other as Agathas looked at Barris, eyebrows raised, chewing. When the rat woman had finished, Barris dipped into his money pouch. 

“Give her this,” Barris said, flicking the coin through the air to one of the guards, who caught it. “Give her meat scraps from the kitchen and then get her far away from this castle. The sight of her sickens me.”

“Barris!” Agathas blurted, shocked, around a mouthful of meat and wine. “Surely you cannot believe anything that it—”

“Do as I have ordered,” thundered Barris, rendering Agathas mute. “By the gods, remove this creature at once.”

The room was silent but for the clanking of armor as the two guards hustled the rat woman out, slamming the stout door behind them. Agathas glanced at Barris, then at the rest of her council members, all of whom were trading their own uneasy looks. 

“Honorable Prefect ,” ventured one of the councilmen. “I must inquire—”

“The matter is closed,” Barris said briskly, pulling his plate closer and reclaiming his turkey leg. “Now, back to our feast, I wish to hear no more about it.” 

The man, Daghved Chancey, pushed his chair back and stood, hands on his hips. “Seems to me, Honorable Prefect, that after such a display as that, your council members are owed an explanation of some sort.”

Barris looked up from his plate, frowning. “Explanation?”

“It is common practice to destroy the rat creatures on sight, not reward them and set them free to infect—”

“I owe you nothing,” said Barris, chewing. “You are advised to desist.”

Chancey advanced on Barris, his voice rising. “You are advised to explain yourself sir, how and why you departed from the law stating—”

Barris moved like lightning, belying his bulk. The silver drinking horn in his hand collided with the side of Chancey’s head, sending him crashing to the ground howling. Blood oozed from the wound to mix with the wine as Barris roared, advancing on the stricken man, “You will not presume to lecture me on laws I myself put into effect, Chancey! The kingdom’s subjects cannot be trusted to think for themselves as I can. Perhaps this will help you to remember everything I have said.” 

Before anybody could react, Barris pulled a mace and chain from the sleeve of his robe and brought the metal ball crashing down on Chancey’s head. The man’s head rebounded from the floor with a dull thud like a falling sandbag. Barris placed one meaty foot on Chancey’s chest, bearing down, forcing the air from Chancey’s lungs as the latter gasped for breath, hands opening and closing as they grasped at nothing. 

“What have I just said to you, Chancey?” Barris asked, grinning, bearing down still harder as Chancey fought to speak. “What did I just tell you to remember?” There was a cracking sound from deep inside Chancey’s chest and he let out a squeak that would have been a scream with more air.

At the council table, Agathas had her hand between her legs beneath her robe, eyes glazed and jaw slack as she watched the life being crushed from the man on the floor. The rest of the council watched avidly, exhibiting their own signs of estrus as the darkness surrounded Chancey and his struggles for breath grew less meaningful. He was about to drift off into a peaceful sleep when the crushing weight lifted and he felt nourishing life-giving air trickle into his lungs like a stone knife. He sucked greedily at it and the darkness cleared a little. 

“What are you supposed to remember, Chancey?” asked Barris, swinging the mace and chain in front of Chancey’s eyes. Fear flashed in them as Chancey attempted to scramble away. One leg was half-paralyzed and hindered his movement as Barris advanced grinning. “Can’t remember?”

Barris raised the mace. Chancey’s breathless scream was cut off by a thick meaty thud and the sound of a woman’s orgasm, Agathas reaching her climax just as Chancey’s brain splattered across the walls. She shuddered in her chair, convulsing, her eyes rolling back as she moaned. Barris dropped the bloody mace on Chancey’s body and wiped his hands on his robe. He stepped back to his seat at the table, drew his chair under him and sat. 

“Agathas, when you’ve recovered, summon a steward for wine and to clean up what’s left of Chancey,” said Barris, and sunk his teeth into another turkey leg. 

My Darling Dead: Bastards Episode 3/ Council Rules

Orteg’s favored tavern was situated in the forest proper. A small dirt road led from the stone-paved thoroughfare to its front doors, the road flanked by huge trees older than time itself. A bird familiar with cartography would see the tavern at the center of a hundred little paths wending their way towards it through the forest, like the center of a spider’s web. It was down one of these paths that Zavier and Orteg now walked, away from the main thoroughfare. 

Orteg gaped. “Who are you? How do you know of all this?”

“I am the son of the counsel to King Wendell, the wizard Sapius was my father and shared with me your entire pathetic history,” Zavier said, waving a hand impatiently. “I have long been searching for you to tell you this, and to tell you: you must be made king!

“When the princess Alasin, your half-sister, was born, she was the recipient of a dreadful curse by a fairy at her christening ceremony. As revenge against the king for two-timing the fairy, the princess was doomed to continually suffer the loss of the one she loved most, which, at the time, was the king. He died as a result and the steps the queen took to preserve her own life ultimately drove the princess mad, though she was none too stable, to begin with. 

“Alasin took a love potion before looking in the mirror beside her mother, and, falling in love with both of them, sealed their fate. The curse dispatched them that night but was never broken by her dying a natural death. Which is the plague, the rat creatures, rampant filth, all the side effects of the curse, are going to continue on and on until a new king is christened, properly. You are that king!”

Zavier halted, breathing heavily, staring at Orteg with hot, unblinking eyes.

“So…what am I supposed to do?” asked Orteg, feeling foolish. 

“You must get to the castle. The council which has attempted to govern in light of a real king will be gathered. In their presence, I will perform a spell which shall reveal your lineage. They will have no choice but to crown you king!” Zavier cried, spittle flying from his mouth in his ardor. “The entire kingdom will fall under your rule, with your divine right as Wendell’s heir a new era will come to the kingdom, one of lawful productivity rather than the dark squalor of insanity, a strong, new…”

They continued down the path, Zavier extolling the upcoming Orteg Era of the kingdom as its namesake listened in a daze, only catching half of what was being said. As the wizard’s voice began to fade, in the foliage of one of the branches looming over the forest path, what had once been a human female crawled from a tree limb. Her eyes glowed with a crazed fire and her matted hair was crusted with dirt and sticks. She had long ago lost the power of speech, but her subconscious retained enough of the language skills she had learned as a child to understand it. She knew the information she had heard would be worth something to the council, and that meant food. After waiting for the sound of footsteps to die away, she slithered headfirst down the tree and set off in the direction of the castle, giving the two men a wide berth. 

The Honorable Prefect Mosh Barris sat at the head of the long council table in the courtroom of the castle, pulled up to the table as close as his ample stomach would allow. Three of his six chins wobbled as he chewed the mouthful of roast oxen with relish. Six men sat to his left and six women sat to his right, making up the government of the kingdom. All were well-fed, though none so well-fed as Barris himself, all were wearing wigs and all were staring down their noses at the little man cringing before them, wringing a filthy hat in his equally filthy hands.

“Farmer Ellis,” Barris rumbled after swallowing, taking care to keep the smile from his meaty features, “The effects of the rat creatures upon your farm is not the concern of this council. The pestilence is your responsibility to control to the best of your ability and is not to interfere with your tithings. Therefore, your request for an extension on your land tax is denied.” 

“But… Your Honor, my entire family has been taken by the pox or the rat plague. It is only me to care for them all and to maintain the farm.” Tears were coursing down his gaunt cheeks as he fell to his knees, beseeching each member of the council in turn. “I beg of you, have mercy.”

“Exceptions cannot be made,” said the woman immediately to Barris’s right. “Any exception would result in the same request being made a thousandfold.”

“Quite right, Agathas,” said Barris, favoring her with a thick-lipped smile. “At any rate, the kingdom needs taxes, not excuses. You may go, Ellis.”

The farmer got to his feet and jammed his hat on his head. Turning to go, he was halfway to the door, before he spun around and threw his hat to the ground.

“Barris! You and your council of toads are nothing but bloated bags of gas feeding on the misfortunes of others! May you one day face the same mercy you have shown!” Ellis shouted, his voice shrill. “There will be others, and before long, you will be buried by them! Selfish pigs—”

“BAILIFF!” screamed Barris, crashing to his feet, his own large features turning a dark purple. “Take this man away and execute him for treason! To speak against the governing faction of the kingdom is to speak against the kingdom itself.” He slumped back in his chair, breathing heavily. 

Before Ellis could react, his arms had been pinioned behind his back by a hulking man in a gray smock who had been standing unnoticed in the corner. The hulking man gave a sharp jerk upward and a wet popping sound filled the room as the farmer’s arm was broken from its socket. Ellis screamed still louder. The woman Agathas watched with rising color of her own, her tongue moistening her lips. Barris could feel himself getting aroused. 

“On second thought, bailiff,” Barris said with a grin, watching Agathas. “Execute him here, for our amusement.”

Ellis began to blubber through his tears and screams, begging and pleading, words about his family, sick and dying without him. The hulking man stunned him with a rap to the back of the head. “As you wish, sir. Would you like it to be quick, or slow?”

Barris looked at Agathas and raised his eyebrows inquisitively. 

“Slowly,” she said. Her hand was already between her legs and her breathing ragged. “But not too slowly.” 

 

 

My Darling Dead : Bastards – Episode 1 The New King

 

Orteg slammed open the door of his hut, a gust of cold wet air following him into the sitting room. The meager fire his wife Dashani had managed to coax from their remaining splinters of wood was almost extinguished by the blast. Orteg, groping with his foot, managed to shut the door behind him without dropping the armful of wood he carried. His three children huddled beneath a moth-eaten bearskin rug beside the smudge of fire. Their mother looked up as the door latched and Orteg stomped over to the fireplace, leaving muddy footprints in his wake. He dropped the pile of soggy logs and wiped his hands on his dirty trousers with a disgruntled sigh.

“Could you get no more?” Dashani asked, her voice sharp and accusatory. She prodded at the pile of wood with a finger. “These’re soaked through.”

Orteg didn’t answer. He had gone into the corner of the sitting room which served as their kitchen and appeared to be tearing it apart, tossing things from their places onto the floor where they rolled until his feet kicked them aside. The children withdrew further into their bearskin sanctuary, becoming little more than brown lumps as the clankings and crashings continued. Dashani pushed herself to her feet with a sound of exasperation and limped toward him. Her leg had been savagely gashed in a fall and the infection was beginning to smell. Orteg attempted in vain to withdraw from her even as he upended a basket. 

“What in the devil are you doing?” she snapped, leaning against the counter as he reached behind a cupboard. “You know no whiskey remains after you drank it all last night. Is this ache not enough to remind you?” She reached up and rapped her knuckles on his skull.

“Devil take you, woman!” he snarled, slapping her hand away and stepping back. “Curse your infernal tongue, why not use it to clean out that festering hole in your leg, that you might stand a prayer of it remaining, and leave me in peace?”

“Do not be speaking to me that way, Orteg Bluenote,” Dashani shrilled, waving a finger in his face. “If you had been better than a no ‘count lazy good-for-nothing drunk you would have seen the morning’s sunrise and I’d have not needed to be crossing the ravine to check your traps, that we might have food for another night for the children you were so keen to put in me that you now scarcely look at! This is all your doing and don’t you forget it!”

Orteg’s hand moved like lightning, connecting with Dashani’s face and sending her sprawling. The lumps under the bearskin let out small cries, mixing with her own cry of pain as her back collided with the bed frame in the other corner of the hut’s single room. Tears rolled down her face unbidden as she cowered on the floor while her husband advanced on her, roaring “SILENCE! By all the gods that are, woman, you will give me peace or I will take it!” He raised a hand again and when she flinched but said nothing, he grunted in satisfaction. 

“Snake-tongued devil bitch,” he flung over his shoulder as he left, allowing another cold blast of wet air into the hut. This time, the fire went out. The children began to weep in earnest, their cries joining in with their mother’s as all four sobbed into the uncaring darkness. 

Orteg stumped through the woods, his feet following the path they had made with no conscious thought required from him. The palm of his hand stung where it had collided with Dashani’s face and he flexed it, relishing its sting. It was difficult for Orteg to remember the fiery young peasant girl he had fingered in the hayloft and impregnated that same summer. Though it had been less than three years ago it seemed as though a lifetime. Now, all he could think was…

He heard the sound of laughter and music up ahead and hastened his footsteps, his mouth-watering. The tavern was well lit, cheery and inviting. Orteg slipped into its comforting bosom and once again, all his cares evaporated. 

Hours later, Orteg stumbled up to the bar, nearly losing his footing and catching himself on it. “Barkeep, more whiskey,” he slurred, rapping his mug on the bar. Holding it out, his bloodshot eyes roved around the bar, taking in its clientele and sifting them for availability, desirability, ease of access and past experience. There was the usual menagerie of rough trade; farmers with dirt crusted so thick on their faces that what lay beneath was a mystery, hags seeking companionship, tavern wenches looking pretty but resigned, the usual riffraff. Further down the bar, a trio of dwarves were laughing uproariously at something. A table of what appeared to be elves were deep in conversation at a table in the corner, a beautiful blade on the table between them. 

Orteg dismissed them as immaterial as his eye made contact with one of the tavern wenches he had known many times, frequently when Dashani’s less than welcoming nature had sent him to the tavern. Sarina had just returned to the main room from the upstairs, where private business was transacted. She straightened her bodice as a man followed her, a silly grin on his features and walking unsteadily. He went to kiss her and she turned her head with a smile, deflecting it to her cheek as she winked at Orteg with one soft brown eye. The man chortled and pecked her on the cheek before stumbling to the bar. Behind him, Sarina beckoned to Orteg, sliding a finger down the center of her décolletage and licking her lips. Draining his glass, Orteg stood and lurched toward the girl, bouncing off another patron with a curse. Attempting to bypass the stranger proved impossible, for he moved to block Orteg. 

“Away, fool,” Orteg muttered thickly, attempting to walk through the man. “Can’t you see what awaits?”

“I would speak with you, Bluenote,” said the figure from beneath its cowl. “What I have to say to you, I daresay you will find more engaging than pleasures of the flesh.” 

Orteg, who could think of no such thing, grunted laughter and attempted again to pass the figure. “I doubt that very much, sir.” The tavern wench grinned, lifted her skirt a little and turned to mount the stairs. 

“Son of Wendell, you must heed me!”

The dead king’s name floated before Orteg’s bloodshot eyes for a moment before vanishing. Sarina smiled prettily, lifting her skirt still higher. Calf gave way to thigh and Orteg felt his own member responding. She grinned and rubbed a hand over her crotch. 

“Outta my way,” Orteg grunted, shouldering the figure aside. The world had dwindled to the tavern wench and Orteg smiled oafishly at her. “‘m comin’ with you.” 

“It is so,” Sarina said with a musical laugh, dropping her skirt to take his hand, rubbing her other hand under his nose. “You like this?” Her smell overwhelmed him. 

“Yuh,” he said, his tongue thick and his hands busy. She slapped at them. “Come,” she said, and turned, ascending the stairs. In a stupor of lust, Orteg followed, panting. 

She slipped into the first door at the top of the stairs and with a giggle ran to the bed. Flouncing upon it, she looked at him prettily as he stumbled through the doorway. He shut the door behind him, turning the key in the lock as he grinned, absently rubbing his crotch. 

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked, her voice demure as she patted the bed beside her. 

“Sure am,” he slurred, and with a stagger, fell onto the bed atop her. 

As he did, the door shuddered as it was splintered by a savage blow. Orteg floundered on the bed, the girl beneath him, unable to get his balance. With another mighty crash, the door caved inward and three scrawny figures on all fours scrabbled into the room. Orteg screamed, trying to get his feet underneath him and stand but Sarina held on, her fingers clutching at his back with sudden needlelike claws. She grinned at him, and Orteg felt a whole new level of fear. Her teeth were now long and sharp, her eyes feline slits. Her expression made him feel like prey.

“Son of the king, I have long awaited my day of reckoning with you,” she rasped, in a voice unlike her own. 

The next moment, he was forcefully yanked off of her and thrown to the ground by two of the thin figures. The third stepped hard on his chest, knocking the breath from him, as the other two held his arms out to his sides. Orteg thrashed his lower half around for a moment until the increasing pressure on his chest compelled him to cease. 

“That’s better,” Sarina said, rising to her feet and moving toward him. “Many years ago, your kin did away with me. Your sister, to be precise. She stabbed me and I bled to death, or so she thought. Now I shall have the pleasure of doing away with the last of her bloodline.” She raised a hand, clawed fingers reaching for Orteg’s throat. 

From the doorway, a firm voice said “Not while I breathe, Esemli, Fairy of Darkness. Stand away from the king’s rightful heir!” 

Orteg jerked his head to the side, seeing the hooded figure which had attempted to detain him on his way upstairs, even as his brain sought to interpret the words he had heard and make sense of them.

King’s…heir?? But…

The fairy wench spun, hissing. “Fool! Leave, while you are still able. This does not concern you.” She pointed a clawed finger at Orteg. “The man is mine!”

“It concerns us all, and he belongs to the kingdom. Now begone!” thundered the hooded man and made a downward slashing gesture with both hands. The figure standing on Orteg’s chest was knocked back against the wall. Blood spurted from its nose and it made desperate moaning noises, eyes bulging before slumping over onto its face. 

Orteg felt the other two release him as air flooded back into his lungs. The fairy wench screamed and leaped for him just as Orteg felt something pass him with frightful speed and strike the woman between the eyes. They met Orteg’s as she flew backward, he seeing the feral slits return to their normal soft brown and her teeth retreat from their sharp points just as she hit the wall with a sickening crunch. Sliding to the ground, she did not move.

With fierce chattering noises, the other two shapes charged at Zavier. The latter raised one hand before him and shut his eyes, screwing up his face in concentration. The air grew very hot, stinging Orteg’s face, causing him to screw up his eyes as the two shapes halted as though they had been frozen. When Orteg opened his eyes again, they were gone, leaving only shimmering air where their bodies had been.

 “They are gone,” Zavier said, breathing hard, “But they will return. My power will only remove them for a short time.” He gestured. “Now, come. We must go. There are things to be said which should not be said here.” Swirling his cloak around him, he was out the door and gone before Orteg could do more than gape. 

After a moment, Orteg blundered to his feet. Trying not to look at the two dead bodies in the room, he stumbled to the door and looked out warily. Down on the main floor, immobile in the sea of bodies in motion, stood the hooded man, staring at Orteg. 

His mouth formed words:

Follow.

Orteg followed. 

My Darling Dead: Episode 13 / The Fairy’s Laughter

The queen’s face was white as she looked at her daughter standing in the doorway behind the fairy’s still bleeding body. Alasin looked back at her mother, breathing heavily and shaking with rage and shock. 

“Cursed…? My whole life I was cursed and you never saw fit to tell me?” Alasin’s voice trembled as well. “All this time and I find it out from the very…creature to put the curse upon me, told as she mocks you with what she has done to the kingdom?” Alasin gestured at the dead rat woman on the ground, revulsion in her voice. “I have seen it. There are more of them. Many more! If not for the kindness of one person, I might have been set upon by them and torn to pieces. But that would likely be a worthy price for you to pay, mother, to get your filthy cursed daughter out of your sight at last!” Her voice had risen steadily until she was screaming. 

Her mother stood impassive, letting her daughter’s words wash over her as any parent does when ignoring the tantrums of their child. Hespa half expected Alasin to begin storming around the room, breaking things and rending hangings from the wall.  

“And yet, I still have no idea the nature of this curse,” Alasin finished at the top of her lungs, her fingers curled into fists. “Tell me what damns me!”

“The fairy said that the one whom you love the most would perish.” Hespa looked at her daughter with something like pity. “Poor thing. It wasn’t your fault.” 

Alasin scarcely heard this last. Her mind was whirling with this latest revelation, much of her life coming in to focus for the first time. Her revolving door of nannies, her mother’s constant icy indifference toward her, some of her earliest memories were of attempting to forge a bond with Hespa only to be coldly rebuffed. She would take solace in the arms of one of her nurses, only to be told the next morning that the nurse had been called away forever and she would be meeting her newest nanny shortly. This new nanny would be an unknown quantity and Alasin would shy from her for some time before trust was built and inevitably love, then the cycle would repeat itself. 

In particular, she was reminded of the way Madam Flood and the blacksmith had met their ends. She particularly remembered the blacksmith and tears of hot shame and regret came to her eyes. 

“Tears won’t help you, my daughter. They did not help me, though buckets of them I cried to watch my only child being raised by others.” Hespa’s face trembled. “It was a pain unlike any other I have borne.”

“Your pain did not stretch so far as to preclude you from sending your only child from all she had known into the world with such a curse attached to her!” Alasin shrieked. “There is blood upon your hands, mother, the blood of innocents!” Her eyes were wide and rolling as she pointed at Hespa with a quivering finger. 

“Blood is upon the hands of your dead father, you little brat!” screamed the queen, for the moment, looking just as unhinged as her daughter. “I was not the one two-timing one of the most powerful species to ever exist even as you were being born! I did nothing I did not have to do in order to preserve the kingdom so you could grow up as a spoiled little hellbitch!” She shrieked this last with such force that it lifted her to her toes. 

Alasin felt burning tears leap to her eyes as she glared at her mother, fists clenched so hard she could barely feel them. “At least now you don’t have to worry about dying because I love you,” she hissed through trembling lips, her cheeks shining. Without another word, she turned and left Hespa staring after her, shaking. 

The wizard sat at his workbench, his great book of spells open before him. The book was very old and had been given to him by his master before the elder had succumbed to the Darkness and departed this realm. Sapius had asked his master to whom the book had originally belonged and the old man had struck him upside the head. He had not dared ask again. All the spells in the world were said to be in that book, and Sapius had been poring over it with increasing desperation in the recent weeks as reports of the rat people increased and the rumblings from the townsfolk grew ever louder. The queen was in denial as the castle staff continued their spiral toward outright mutiny and rebellion, prompting Sapius to redouble his efforts. 

So engrossed was he that his chamber door swinging open scarcely registered on his fevered consciousness. Not until the princess was standing right in front of him did he realize with a start that she was there. 

“By the gods,” he gasped, putting a hand to his heart where the belabored organ pounded frantically in an attempt to recover as he stood. “You gave me a fright, Princess.”

“Wizard, what know you of love potions?” she snapped. 

“They are divided in kind,” he said, remaining standing as he did. He did not care for the look in the eye of the princess at all. It was the look of madness. 

“There are those which provide only a subtle nudge of the heart and take time to build to the desired result. Others are limited in scope to one person for whom the drinker feels amorous. Most dangerous of all are the ones which provide immediate, permanent infatuation to the first person the drinker sees. These are the most risky because there is no way to undo the enchantment and if circumstances go awry, the drinker may fall forever madly in love with the wrong person.”

“I require one of the latter,” said Alasin. “Immediately.” 

Alarm bells were ringing in the wizard’s head. “Might I ask why, Highness?”

“Do not question me!” she shrieked, striding forward and leaning over the workbench in his face. Tiny droplets of her spittle peppered his face. “I am the princess of the realm and it is not your place to question me, wizard! Obey my command or I will see your head on a spike!” 

“Your will, Highness,” said the wizard, unwilling to show her just how disturbed he was by the lack of sanity in her voice and her eyes. “Although if I may caution–“

Her fist pounded the workbench, sending a beaker crashing to the ground. “I will not command you again.” 

Never taking his eyes off her, Sapius reached inside his robes and brought forth a small brass key which he used to unlock one of the drawers in his workbench. Reaching all the way to the back of the drawer, he brought out a vial filled with a purplish, glowing liquid. The color reflected in Alasin’s eyes as they fixed on it. 

“I only have but one, Lady,” Sapius said, holding it out to her. “Have a care, for it takes many turns of the sun to create more.”

She snatched it from him and turned on her heel in the same motion. She was gone before he could do more than blink. The feeling of disquiet settled deeper within him, along with the sensation that inexorable events had been set in motion. 

******

Queen Hespa stood at her window, staring at her kingdom. Even from here, she could see the small shapes of rat people scuttling around the buildings below. Screams filtered up from the ground and she fancied she could hear the sounds of cracking bones and rending flesh. She had no idea what the rat people actually did to the living but her fertile imagination was only too happy to fill the gaps in her knowledge. 

The smell of the dead rat woman and the blood of the fairy still hung in the air, though their bodies had been removed by two servants who were clearly very reluctant to do so. Hespa thought sourly of the blood, both woman and fairy, that had puddled on her floor. It would need scouring before it faded even the slightest bit and a hundred years from now there would still be some caked in the cracks between the stones. 

A sound made her turn. The door was opening and Alasin came in. Hespa tensed. 

“Are you here to spew more vitriol in my direction, daughter?”

“Mother, please. This bitterness gets us nowhere.” Closing the door, Alasin moved to the cart on which Hespa’s goblets and wine were stored. “All I want is for us to share a glass of wine and make peace together.” 

With her back turned to Hespa, Alasin pulled the tiny flask from her bodice. Setting her nails into the cork, she pulled it out without a sound. 

“Why?” Hespa’s voice was weary but Alasin could tell she had not moved from her place by the window. Alasin upended the flask over one of the goblets, sending bright purple liquid cascading into the glass. 

“You are my mother,” Alasin said. “If you cannot love me, at the least, I wish for you to not hate me.” Stowing the flask back in her undergarments, she poured wine. The purple liquid at the bottom of the glass was swallowed by the dark red wine without a trace. 

“A fine sentiment,” the queen said, turning from the window. “But you and I both know the dangers that lie therein.”

“Come, mother,” said Alasin, lifting both glasses and offering the unadulterated one to her parent. “Taste this wine with me and let us embark upon a new chapter in our lives.” She met Hespa’s eyes unblinking over the goblet, holding it between them. 

For a moment, the queen held her daughter’s gaze. Alasin held her breath while maintaining her contact with her mother’s eyes until the glass was taken from her hand. 

“I say, mother, come look at this with me,” Alasin said, gesturing at the mirror hung on the back of the chamber door, stepping toward it. In her periphery, she could see herself moving in the reflection but refused to focus on it. “If you stand here with me, over a century of the kingdom’s rule will be represented in its reflection.”

The queen joined her daughter before the mirror and stood looking. She saw herself as she always had, an inflexible example of authority and power. Beside her, for once, stood her daughter.

“New beginnings,” Hespa said, raising her glass to the mirror and draining it. 

“New beginnings,” Alasin echoed and drained her own. The potion was barely discernible amid the wine and gave it a sweeter flavor than the dry red taste that Hespa preferred. 

The queen smiled. “It’s good wine, isn’t it?”

Alasin raised her eyes to the mirror just as the wizard’s potion took full effect. What she saw in the mirror was more perfect than anything she could have ever imagined. Her mother seemed almost to glow. Her own smile lit up the room, and in that moment, she felt her heart fall for the figures in the mirror. 

“Very good,” murmured Alasin. “I love you, mother.”

EPILOGUE

Sapius the wizard had lived in the kingdom for many years. He had served the monarchy for most of his adult life and would not have hesitated to use some of his darkest magic on anyone who threatened it. So when the castle guards came pounding at his chamber door the next morning, he was flabbergasted to find their swords drawn as he opened the door. They poured in through the entrance, surrounding him with their sharp steel before he could react. 

Bortix the Captain of the Guard strode forward and struck the wizard full in the face with a mailed glove. Sapius could taste blood in his mouth and felt it trickle from the corner of his mouth. Bewildered, he could do no more than gape at Bortix, with whom he had often shared his dwarf’s tobacco in exchange for the guardsman’s secret recipe mulled mead. 

“What…why…” he managed to stammer, but the look Bortix wore on his face robbed him of any further questions. 

“Save it, wizard,” Bortix spat. In a trice, a dagger was in his hand and the point was under Sapius’s chin, forcing his head back. “We know what you did.” 

“Pray, then, enlighten me,” Sapius managed to choke out, his eyes staring at the ceiling. “I have no idea what I did.”

“The princess and the queen have died at your hands and you dare to play the fool to me?” Bortix roared and punched the wizard square in the face, his meaty fist wrapped around the dagger handle.

Sapius went flying backward and would have certainly hit the floor had one of the guards surrounding him not pushed him back toward Bortix who responded with another fist to the wizard’s face. This time the guard moved to the side so Sapius fell all the way to the floor, where he was greeted by an army of kicking, stomping boots. One collided with the side of his head and a black cloud enveloped him, even as the words echoed in his head. 

Bortix stood over the unconscious wizard, his great hands balled into fists, glaring at the prone figure with hate in his eyes as his guards took turns applying their boots to the fallen man. Normally one of the most rational and level headed men in the kingdom, Bortix made no move to stop his soldiers beating the helpless body. 

When the day had passed its noon and the queen had not stirred, Bortix had entered the queen’s chamber after knocking progressively louder until he was pounding at the stout timbers. The queen lay on her bed, a peaceful smile on her face. Bortix had seen many dead bodies in his time and he did not need to shake the queen by the shoulder or shout her name to know that she had departed this realm. He did so anyway, shouting for the castle medic with tears growing in his eyes and a great sinking feeling in his chest. The medic had arrived and given the sad pronouncement before Bortix thought of the princess. Or, he thought, as she would be known henceforth, the queen. 

Giving strict instructions to the medic to let no one into the queen’s chamber in his absence, Bortix hastened to the room of the princess. His adjurations to open the door resulted in nothing but silence and the door was locked from within. Bortix threw his entire body weight at the door again and again until it yielded to his bulk. There lay the princess on her own bed, arms at her sides, an identical expression of peace on her face. The only difference between her and the queen was the object in her left hand. Bortix had availed himself of the potions the wizard concocted and knew the shape of the glass bottles well. He had no trouble recognizing the bottle in the dead princess’s hand as coming from the chambers of Sapius. 

When the wizard had been burned at the stake, Bortix, yielding to the clamoring of his guards, crowned himself king. This did not sit well with the subjects of the kingdom, who, having tolerated the rise of the rat people and the unwillingness of the crown to address the issue, mobilized enough to storm the castle and slaughter all of the guards. Bortix ultimately threw himself from the tallest tower after a long and protracted battle with the villagers, unwilling to let them have him. The leader of the rebels crowned himself king, only to be slain at his own coronation by what had once been his best friend, who ascended to the throne in his stead. He lasted several days before the new captain of the guards murdered him, plucking the crown from his severed head and settling it atop his own at a jaunty angle until he too was slain. 

The crown passed from hand to hand with its subjects fighting tooth and nail among themselves for it. The rat people flourished and spread, until the land was covered in darkness and filth, the deluded self-proclaimed monarchs afraid to sleep nights lest they wake up dead. 

Underneath it all, with the right ears, could be heard the laughter of the fairies. 

 

My Darling Dead: Episode 12/The Fairy’s Return

For years, Hespa had been plagued by stories of the rat people. She had forbidden their mention in her court, but updates and rumors still flew through the castle in spite of (or perhaps because of) her edict. She knew, for example, that the rat people were taking over her kingdom at an astonishing rate, replacing her subjects with feral monstrosities which fed on death and decay and were eager to spread their disease. She knew that the rat people now outnumbered those not so afflicted and that within weeks if not sooner she would be the head of a kingdom consisting of nothing but rat people. Already several had been found inside the walls of the castle, one of them only a few floors down from her private chambers. Hespa shuddered and drained the wine from the glass she held. She extended her arm and immediately the empty glass was replaced with a full one by her handmaiden. 

“Leave me,” the queen snapped. The handmaiden was happy to do so.

Hespa also knew that the humans still under her rule were muttering and that their mutterings had grown loud enough to be heard clearly by spies and castle guards. The word “rebellion” had not yet been uttered, but any fool could tell that it was on the minds of many. Hespa had witnessed castle guardsmen holding her eye contact longer than was proper, staring back at her insolently until she was forced to drop her own eyes, hating herself as she did so. She had never felt so vulnerable as these past months, surrounded by inhuman things and resented by those in whose hands she placed her life. 

The mid-morning sun reflected from the armor of the guard on duty at the front gate of the castle. He belched and squinted into the sun, straining to discern mirage from reality as a figure approached the castle gate. Or was it two figures? No, just one. 

No…

His eyes widened. 

“Halt and be–”

Esemli raised her left hand and the guard was thrown into the nearest wall with such force that his breaking bones were heard hundreds of feet away. He screamed and she winced. 

“No,” she said, and waved her hand again. The guard continued screaming but no noise came out, eyes bulging as he attempted to cradle his broken parts and give voice to his hurts. The other guards stampeded each other trying to get out of Esemli’s way. She swept through the gate and past them without a look. In her right hand she held a leash and to her leash was attached one of the rat people, a woman who had perhaps once been plump but now appeared emaciated to the point of death. 

Her skin was caked with filth and blood was smeared around her mouth. Her clothes were rags, held together mostly by luck. Her eyes darted this way and that and she never seemed to stop licking her lips. Part of her bottom lip was gone from a time when the woman had been so desperate for meat that she had begun eating her own face. Half of her teeth grinned through her cheek at anybody who looked at her. On all fours, she scuttled behind Esemli like a dog which has been beaten often enough to fear its master but not often enough to attempt escape. 

Esemli did not appear even to notice the creature in her wake. She mounted the stairs to the queen’s chamber with the rat woman at her heels. Raising her left hand, the queen’s chamber door slammed open with such force that the metal handle cracked the stone wall. Hespa whirled as Esemli let the leash go and snapped a word in a strange language that meant nothing to the queen, but the rat woman clearly understood. Still on all fours, she made straight for the queen, a horrifying grin etched on what remained of her features as she snapped her teeth. 

Hespa was frozen only for a moment before countless hours on self defense spent with Bortix the Captain of the Guard leapt to the forefront of her mind. The queen whirled, seizing a long metal spike from beside her window and as the rat woman leaped, Hespa extended her arm and set her feet. The rat woman collided with the spike, the force of her attack impaling her upon the spike through one of her crazed rolling eyes. 

The fairy laughed. “Well done, Queen Hespa. Perhaps you should be standing guard over your castle rather than the bumbling fools currently there.” 

Hespa did not hear. Her eyes were locked on the rat woman’s face, overcome with horror as the woman’s eye ran down her hollow cheek. She had heard of the rat people, yes, but she had never seen one, much less this close. The humanity she could still detect beneath the dirt and waste was worst of all. Now that the woman was dead, Hespa could see the peasant woman who had once resided behind those eyes. Her face was relaxed, her eyes no longer rolling. But for the spike through her eye and half her lip being gone, she could have been asleep. 

Esemli closed the door behind her. “Queen Hespa, you forget your manners. I have brought you a gift, the least you could do is offer me some of your wine.”

This time, the words sunk in. Hespa tore her eyes from the rat woman with an effort and dropped the spike. “Fairy, your presence here is less welcome than the plague. I would sooner spit in your face than offer you wine.” Pasting a sneer on her face, Hespa moved to where her goblet stood and drained it before refilling it from the crystal decanter. 

A flicker of annoyance flashed across Esemli’s face and she moved her left hand, ever so slightly. The decanter overbalanced and splashed wine all over the queen. Hespa swore and drained what was left in the decanter before throwing it out the window in a blind fury that abated as she heard the crystal smash on the stones far below. She did not look at the fairy, sipping her wine from the goblet as she wrestled back control. 

“Decades I have been gone from your eye,” Esemli said, her voice quiet but with an intensity Hespa could hear across the room. “But I have not been gone from this realm. I have watched your daughter grow from innocent child to petulant woman, never able to love her mother because you have made it impossible. I have witnessed your subjects regress and devolve until the wisest of them is merely a few steps above yonder wretch.” She gestured at the rat woman’s body which lay in a puddle of her own blood, eyes still open, one staring at the spike which had impaled its mate. “Your husband’s disrespect was not forgotten and as your daughter was cursed, so was the entire kingdom, to descend slowly into bestial madness. The suffering of the monarchy and the collapse of the kingdom have been a pleasure to behold for all of my kind.” The fairy laughed. 

“Why did you bring that…creature, Esemli?” Hespa asked, staring at her kingdom. 

“Bringing you what hath been wrought, Your Highness,” the fairy said, and sank into a deep and mocking curtsey which was wasted on the impassive queen. “This is one of your subjects with all the trappings of décor stripped away, exposed for what they are. Nothing but a pathetic, slavering, mewling–”

The door slammed open behind Esemli. Her eyes widened and she was halfway through turning toward the door before Princess Alasin’s poisoned dagger buried itself in the fairy’s throat. The blood which spurted from the wound was not precisely red but nearly purple and seemed almost to glow. 

The queen turned just in time to see her daughter lunge through the door. The goblet of wine fell from Hespa’s numb fingers. Her feet seemed rooted to the spot. Her glass shattered on the stone floor as the fairy fell, her throat gushing strange blood.

Esemli sank to her knees, one hand reaching to the handle in her throat. The glowing purple blood coated her fingers and she grimaced as she touched the blade. 

“Guh…” she said and wrapped her fingers around the handle sticking out of her throat. She pulled, the sound of the blade sliding through her flesh sending the queen’s skin crawling as fresh gouts of blood poured from her mouth. “Guh…” she said again, her hand dropping from the handle with the blade still buried in her throat. 

“Isss… too…toooooo…” she said, her words obscured by the blood which flowed, faster now, out of her mouth. The color was draining from her face. “Toooooo…” she moaned and fell forward. She landed on the handle of the dagger and with a horrid squelching sound the point of the blade stabbed out the opposite side of her neck. 

My Darling Dead: Episode 11/ The Tipping Point

Bron was torn. The girl was not much larger than his own daughter, who was docile enough during his visits to her at night, but the tone of her voice made him uneasy. He stood, uncertain, adjusting his wilting manhood through his dirty trousers. Alasin continued to stare at him, hands on her hips, making no effort to cover herself. 

Then his sneer returned, along with his erection. “No one would believe you,” he said, unfastening his trousers. “An’ if they did, no one would care. Yer name’s dirt ’round ‘ere, Your Highness.” The sneer sounded in his voice as he shot the bolt to the front door. “Yer mine.”

His insolence made Alasin’s blood boil. She had never wished harder for her poisoned blade, to plunge into the fat greasy man over and over until the walls were red with his blood. He started toward her, one hand reaching into his pants to grip whatever was in there, the other holding his pants up so they did not fall until he reached her. In spite of the wizard’s drug, Alasin felt the touch of fear. Bron smelled it on her. His member grew in his hand and his pace quickened. Involuntarily, Alasin retreated as he advanced upon her, backing until her legs encountered the bed behind her. They buckled, spilling her backward on to the mattress and the dead man. 

Bron was on her almost before she could react. His slobbering breath assaulted her nostrils as his tongue lolled from his mouth, drooling on her as he scrabbled between her legs with one hand, holding one of her arms immobile above her head with his other hand. Her free hand flailed, striking him, her short nails finding no purchase in the fat man’s flesh. Her arm went wide, searching for anything, and her hand closed around a sturdy wooden handle just as she felt something unspeakable and wet attempting to burrow between her legs. 

The blacksmith’s hammer glanced off Bron’s head with the first blow, sending him reeling away from her. Alasin shoved herself to her feet, getting a better grip on the handle just as Bron turned back to her, blood streaming from behind an ear. 

“Whu…you…b-b-b-” he said, and lurched toward her, arms reaching out as his pants fell around his ankles. His face drooped on the side she had hit him and one eye was bloody and dilated. He tripped and would have fallen had Alasin not swung the hammer once more with all her strength, caving in the side of his head and sending him to the ground. He spasmed once and she hit him again, and again, and again until nothing was left of his face and she realized she was screaming. 

She stopped, dropping the hammer into what was left of the peasant’s skull and stood, breathing heavily as she listened. No sounds from outside, nobody pounding but her heart. She listened to it thud in her chest and in time it slowed until she could no longer hear it.

She looked down at herself, fighting a wave of revulsion at the blood which covered her. Water. Was there any water here? A bucket by the front door caught her eye. She picked it up and set it on the small table that sat by the window. Opening the curtains just enough to allow a sliver of light, she could see clear liquid in the bucket. She tasted it. Water. 

Once she had satisfied her thirst and cleansed herself as best she could, she stood for a moment, looking at her reflection in the slowly calming water. A haggard wreck stared back at her, dark circles under her eyes, hair matted and straggly. A sob forced its way from her throat and she slapped at the water, destroying her reflection. A princess of the realm? Princess of dirt. 

Alasin moved about the small hut, gathering her clothing once more. Once she put on her underthings, she looked with distaste at the finery in which she had fled the castle and absorbed so much dirt. She did not want to attract attention as she had with the blacksmith. There were his clothes, but he was a giant; none would fit her. 

Her eyes shifted to the other dead body with whom she was currently keeping company, seeing him in a new light as she sized him up. He was wider by far but not much taller than she was, and if she blackened her face and hid her hair…

She knelt beside what remained of Bron, trying not to look at his face or genitals as she removed his minimally bloody clothes and failing at both. They both nauseated her. To her relief, his clothing fit her better than she had hoped. She even found a greasy cap crammed into the pocket of the filthy trousers into which she tucked her hair, pulling the cap down tight around her ears. In the corners of the hut she found a reasonable supply of dirt which she smeared on her face and neck. 

When she returned to the bucket, the face which looked back was dirty but unremarkable. The cap had a slight brim which she pulled down as low as it would go. On the open street, no one would look twice at her. The smell the clothes gave off stung her nostrils, forcing her to breathe through her mouth. She was almost certain she felt bugs crawling in her hair beneath the cap. 

Going to the door, she unbolted it and opened it just a crack. There was nobody within her field of view and nobody appeared as she opened it further. The street was deserted. She turned and looked at what she was leaving in her wake. Two dead bodies, one of whom was barely recognizable and the other who did nothing to deserve his fate but show a girl a good time. 

Tears sprang to her eyes and she pushed out of the door, slamming it behind her with a resounding snap as she strode up the street, toward the castle, toward the queen, toward everything she had known. She did not look back. If she had, she would have seen two rat people appear from the gap between huts and begin sniffing at the open window and the scent of death inside. 

My Darling Dead : Episode 10 | The Blacksmith

As Alasin fled the hut, she forgot that it was not sitting on the ground, but raised on stilts three steps high. She flew out the door and the ground rose to meet her sharply.  Tumbling end over end she landed in a heap at their bottom. She lay there, winded, her eyes unfocused as the cloud of dust she had raised settled in the early morning rays of sunshine. 

There was a scuttling noise from under Madam Flood’s hut that slowly acquired her attention as her eyes began to focus. Finally able to breathe, Alasin pushed herself up as she turned to face the noise. As her eyes focused, at last, she froze, her heart hammering in her chest. 

A small, thin woman had come out from under the house and was creeping toward her, crouched low, eyes bright and teeth bared. Her hair was matted and thick with dust, as were her clothes. Her nails, long and broken, reached out to Alasin, who could smell the foul creature from where she lay. The rat woman let out a high pitched cackle that sounded devoid of sanity and pounced. 

The woman was in the air for the briefest instant before a large hammer swung out of the blue and pulverized her face. Alasin, who had opened her mouth to scream, was showered in bloody chunks of skull, brain and flesh. She spat as though her tongue were afire and finally laid eyes upon her rescuer. He was a large man, thick shouldered with a blacksmith’s apron over a muscled chest. A dripping blacksmith’s hammer swung from one huge arm.

“Strewth! But that’n almost had ye! Still, no harm done, I’ll reckon. Up y’come, miss!” He said, and extended a hand to her with a smile. 

Alasin wiped her hand on her skirt and gave it to the man with a shaken smile. “Thank you, sir, and thank you for dispatching that…what was that?” she asked as she was pulled upright as though she were a feather. 

“Oh, ar,” the man said darkly, swinging his hammer over his shoulder, unmindful of the muck coating its head. “Them’d be the changed ones. Rat people, I call ’em. Best to do is put ’em down before they hurt somethin’.” He sighed. “Even though some of ’em be my best o’ friends.”

“Madam Flood mentioned something about them last night.”

The man’s face brightened. “Ma’am Flood! That’s right, this be her place, don’t it? How be she?”

“She’s, er… fine,” Alasin stammered, hoping he wouldn’t insist on speaking to the old woman.

“She in?” inquired the man. “I hain’t seen Ma’am Flood in an age, and I be–”

“No! She, ah, said she had somewhere to go this morning and left before I woke, so I took myself for a walk and fell down her stairs because I wasn’t used to them you see and then the creature came from under the stairs and–”

“Ne’er mind,” the man boomed, his chuckle cutting off Alasin’s frantic blather. “We best get ye where ye wish to go, little miss, lest one more of the nasty rat people get ye. Strewth!”

Alasin awoke in pitch darkness, a giant weight upon her chest. Her head was pounding and her mouth tasted of rot. She pushed at the weight. It felt like a dead animal, cool and smooth-skinned with a light coating of hair covering it. It was large, and heavy. Her fingers explored down its length. Her heart shot into her mouth as her fingers touched a palm, then fingers. She was able now to identify the giant weight as an arm, slung across her, as she lay in this bed. 

HIS bed, she realized as unbidden, memories began flooding into her fevered brain. Going off with the jolly blacksmith(whose name she could not recall) after he had saved her life, finding out that she really liked him, turning aside his questions about who she was and where she was going so she could spend longer with him, until he finally stopped asking. Becoming tipsy as they dined and drank as the sun first rose and set in the sky, finally a fog of stumbling back to his own hut and going to bed together. Now she could tell that beneath the arm and the animal pelts that served as a blanket, she was naked. 

Whimpering, she pushed at the arm which held her in a death grip, immobile in its deathly contraction. Finally she was able to wriggle out from underneath it and fall to the floor, sobbing as she pushed herself to the farthest corner of the room, wrapping her arms about herself against the night’s chill. There she sat, struggling to produce silent tears as she wept, for her own terror, for poor Madam Flood, for the unnamed blacksmith, before turning her tears back upon herself. 

When she awoke again it was the gray light of dawn, the sound of birds filling the silence that comes when most people are still asleep. Her neck ached from where she finally fallen into a doze, huddled in the corner hunched over. She was still nude, and shivering violently. Her gaze fell upon the corpse in the bed, face frozen in a peaceful expression, massive arm extended over where she had fallen asleep beneath it.

Unbidden, the tears started again, but she knuckled them aside and pushed herself up, hobbling on stiff legs across to the bed and pulling the bearskin blanket off of the blacksmith’s body, wrapping it around herself as she tried not to look at what remained of her lover. She stooped, picking up her scattered clothing piece by piece. As she did, her little bottle of wizard’s powder and chain dropped to the floor with a clink. With a happy swoop of her stomach, she dropped to her knees beside it and availed herself. 

“Farner! Hey mate, ’tis Bron! Yer not at yer shop! What gives?” 

Alasin’s head jerked up at a pounding from the door, white powder coating her nostrils, her eyes wide. She jammed the lid on the bottle and grabbed up her clothes while the pounding increased before the latch was pushed open from the outside and the door banged open. A small squat man stood framed in the early morning light, his face nothing but a silhouette.

“C’mon, I needs me sword t’day, Farn! Git yer…hoho, what’s all this then?” he said, noticing Alasin, looking frenzied as she clutched her clothing to herself. An ugly grin spread across his face. “Well hey there sweet’eart, me name’s Bron and I guess my man Farn’s been stickin’ it to ya, eh?” 

Alasin’s eyes were huge as she did her best to sidle sideways to block Bron’s view of the bed and Farner’s lifeless body. Bron was fortunately too busy examining the curves of the sheet Alasin draped around herself to notice the bed. 

“Porked ya good did ‘e?” giggled Bron, grabbing his crotch and making exaggerated grinding movements with his hips. 

Alasin’s eyes flashed with temper but Bron sniggered and to her great relief turned to leave. As his body moved, the shadow he had cast upon Alison moved as well, letting a slab of sunlight smack her in the face. “Well I’ll not begrudge ‘im a lie-in after a night wid a beauty like you. Yew tell ‘im Bron stopped by, an’…”

He trailed off, eyes widening. He took a step forward and looked more closely at Alasin. 

“You…” he whispered. Alasin’s heart, hammering like mad, simultaneously froze. 

“Yer…yer the princess!” Bron blurted, raising a hand to point at her. 

“Yes, you festering sore,” Alasin said, drawing herself up to her full height and looking down her nose regally at the little man. “I am Alasin, Princess of Dandoich, and I command you to depart from here immediately and speak of this to no one. Is that clear?”

“Yer… the princess,” the man said, a stupid grin spreading over his face. “Huh… what are you doing here?” His eyes crawled over her, insolent in their lingering. His tongue wet his lips. 

“Dog!” shouted Alasin. “How dare you look upon me! You have been given a command and you will obey at once. Leave!” She raised a hand and pointed to the door. The clothing she had clutched to herself slipped and fell to her waist, exposing a breast. 

“Whoaa…” Bron said, his eyes huge. Alasin swore and snatched the clothes to herself again while attempting to maintain her composure. She saw his grin had become nasty. He stepped inside and shut the door. 

“No one knows yer ‘ere, or yew wouldn’t be wid ‘im,” Bron whispered, gesturing to Farner’s still motionless body. “And that means, I can do what I likes wid ya. Farn won’t mind.” He was beginning to breathe heavily, massaging his trousers as he moved toward her. “And you can’ stop me, Princess, wee slip of a girl like ye.” 

Alasin did not move as he advanced. The rage in her at being spoken to thus had completely blotted out any hint of fear. In one move, she dropped all her clothing and stood before him completely nude, sending his jaw dropping. 

“Hear this, you squalid peasant,” Alasin said, her voice like iron. “If you come for me, you will end. Heed my warning, and desist.”

My Darling Dead : Episode 9 | The Outside

 

Alasin stumbled out through the servant’s doorway at the base of the castle, trying to keep from hysterics. She had nearly been attacked by one of the guards, who had to be restrained by his partner. 

“Let ‘er go, matey, she ain’t worth it. Orders from th’ queen.”

“You murdering harlot!” screamed the other man. “What if they come for us? What if it’s war? If we die because of you I will haunt you until the end of your days!”

Alasin would normally have slain him for his insolence then and there. But the hatred in the eyes of both men and her mother’s shrieks ringing in her ears made her race, sobbing, for the nearest exit. As fresh air hit her face, she looked around in a frenzy. She had never been outside the castle by herself. 

To her right, the castle’s outer wall stretched into the darkness of night what seemed forever. To her left, it went on another ten feet before terminating in the north tower’s bulge outward. Before her, a grassy hill sloped gently down some hundred yards or so before the houses of the kingdom’s townsfolk began in earnest. Among them, she could see the shapes of her subjects moving, living, going about their lives. She had never feared them, but her mother’s banishing words and the cries of the guard she had encountered were fresh in her mind. 

She made her way along the path leading from the front gates towards the huts of the town, expecting at any moment to hear someone shout “The princess! Let’s get her!” No shout came, and she found herself walking down the little town’s main street. She searched in her mind for its name and could not get it to come to mind. She knew though that many of the people in this town were servants and workers at the castle during the day and so lived in close proximity. 

Of course, Alasin thought, instinctively leaning into the darkest part of the shadows, the more castle workers there were in this town, the more likely there would be someone who would recognize her. 

A rustling sound caught her attention as she passed a house and she stopped, turning toward it. The sound came from between two houses and sounded large. Larger than a mouse. Her ears strained to the breaking point, she thought she could hear breathing. 

“’ere now… wot’s this, then?” 

Alasin whirled, stifling a scream as her hand flew to her poisoned blade, remembering too late that it was back in her bedchamber. There was a scratching sound and sparks caught the wick of a lantern. The flame grew and illuminated a dumpy woman holding it, dressed in a brown smock with her hair in a bun. When she smiled at Alasin, it was with three teeth. 

“A t’ousand ‘pologies miss, I surely dint mean t’scare ye.” 

Alasin expected her to continue stammering excuses and prostrate herself at Alasin’s feet, begging forgiveness from royalty as was customary. Instead, she continued to smile at Alasin, clearly waiting for the princess to speak. 

“That’s all right,” she said, and tried on a smile. It seemed to fit, so she continued. “My name is Al…uh…”

“Aluh, that’s a n’usual name,” said the woman. “They call me Madam Flood.”

Alasin opened her mouth to correct her, then realized that Madam Flood had no idea she was speaking to the disgraced princess of the kingdom. She shut her mouth with a snap and pasted a smile on her face.

“But what,” Madam Flood continued, “is a girl like y’self doin’ out ‘ere alone at this hour, an’ all gussied up!” The old woman gestured, first at the sky and enveloping darkness then at Alasin’s clothing, her royal dresses more suitable for a fancy dress ball than simple townsfolk. “You know t’ain’t safe ‘ere no more, specially not at night!”

Alasin’s eyes were blanks in the lantern light. “Isn’t it?”

Madam Flood sighed and tutted. “Come wi’ me, foolish girl. Less get indoors where’s safe n’I’ll tell ye some t’ings ’bout the kingdom you livin’ in.” 

Alasin’s eyes flashed at the insult and her hand went to her dagger again before realizing again that it was gone, and for the first time, realized that she had nowhere else to go. A tear ran from an eye as she dropped her hand and followed the old woman.

Down the row of tiny houses she followed Madam Flood until she came to the last one on the row. Madam Flood mounted three rickety steps and pushed through a flap of fur that served as her door. Alasin grimaced as she followed, feeling the shaggy coat rub against her skin. She found herself in a dark little room with a lumpy looking cot, a fireplace with a rocking chair before it, and a small table. A single cupboard hung on the wall opposite the door beside a small window with dirty panes. 

“Well well m’dear,” Madam Flood said, setting the lantern on the table and stoking the fire so a cheery glow filled the room. “Where’ve you been that you d’no what’s ‘appening ’round ‘ere? ‘n what’re y’doin’ wanderin’ aroun’ in the’ middle o’ the’ night, drest like that? Young gel like you oughta be home wi’ her family.” 

“Never mind that,” Alasin said, and moved closer to the fire, warming her hands as it increased in size. “What’s going on outside? Why isn’t it safe?”

Madam Flood shook her head and settled into her rocking chair with obvious relief. “Wan’ t’know what I thinks, ’tis dark wizards.” 

Alasin’s face must have shown skepticism rather than incomprehension for Madam Flood leaned forward, nodding hard for emphasis. “Oh aye Miss Aluh, th’ dark wizards be ’round doin’ their wicked deeds, you can bet y’teeth. ‘ow else can y’explain…” she broke off, looking at the window as though someone could be peeping through at them, before looking back at Alasin and finishing in a hoarse whisper “…people creepin around…like animals…actin’ strange…ol’ farmer Supik sez ‘is foot was ‘arf torn off by a crazy git ‘oo acted like a mad thing, eatin’ dead mice in ol’ Supik’s hut.” 

The princess felt her stomach crawl at the thought of herself wandering around in the darkness, and the rustling sounds she had heard between the two houses before meeting Madam Flood. “What happened?”

“Well, Supik ain’t the’ type to bandy words wid a freak like that’n,” Madam Flood said briskly, rocking back in her chair. “’e grabbed the nearest rock ‘n put paid to ‘im in the’ face, sev’ral times I ‘eard.”

“How awful,” Alasin said, her voice faint. Her knees buckled. Madam Flood was by her side in a moment and turned Alasin so her fall was more of a controlled sinking into the mattress. 

“’ere ‘ere dearie, there I am tellin’ horror stories when yew need t’be gettin’ some rest, ” Madam Flood said, laying Alasin down on the bed. “Y’need yer rest n’you could do a lot worse’n this bed ‘ere. T’ain’t much but is better’n some c’n boast. Yew don’ wanna be goin’ out ’til is morn,” Pulling the blankets up to Alasin’s chin, she smiled her three-toothed smile at the princess. 

“Thank you… Madam Flood,” Alasin murmured, already half asleep. 

“Think nothin’ of it, Miss Aluh,” said Madam Flood, returning to her chair. “I’ll be ‘ere when you’ve rested yer eyes.”

Alasin started awake, the darkness complete around her as she wondered where she was and how she had gotten there. As she lay, staring into the void, she began to remember. She had been banished and taken in by a woman. She had fallen asleep and the woman had been tending the fire. But now the little hut was dark and cold, and the fire was nothing but a few glowing embers which put off no heat. 

Throwing the blankets off of her, Alasin rose to her feet and began groping her way toward what she recalled as being the chair in which her hostess had planted herself. There was no noise in the hut, no sense of another. Another step and her feet found the table, solid and immobile. Cursing under her breath at the world in general, Alasin navigated around the table and to the rocking chair, which sat heavy on the floor, also immobile. There was no breathing. Her heart froze. 

“Madam Flood?” Alasin said, her voice tentative in the pitch blackness. 

There was no answer. 

“Madam Flood!” 

Silence responded. Alasin reached out a reluctant hand, contacting Madam Flood’s shoulder before she expected to. The flesh was stiff below its garments. Stiff and cold. 

“Madam Flood!” Alasin shook the unresponsive shoulder, knowing it was pointless, hoping it would not be. Her hopes were in vain. Madam Flood would never respond to another entreaty again. 

Alasin stood in the dark for some moments, listening to the absolute silence, willing the corpse sitting in the chair to reanimate, to waken, to move, to stand and cheerily tend to the nearly-dead fire. When it became obvious this would not be occurring, Alasin forced herself to move to the fire. She had never stoked a fire in her life, but had witnessed it enough times to know the basic principles. Groping around by the hearth, she found a bundle of dry, brittle twigs and tossed them on the coals before leaning forward to breathe on them. Why, she did not know, but she had seen it done a number of times in the castle, and knew it to be the thing to do. 

The coals brightened under her breath, shriveling the first of the dried twigs with their heat. She continued breathing on them, encouraged by the brightening glow. As she took in her breath to exhale again, the twigs burst into flames. She let out a little squeak and threw more twigs on, which were speedily consumed. Looking around, she saw smaller pieces of wood stacked near the fire and threw two of them on the fire. It almost went out, but flared up when she resumed blowing on it. Within a few moments, she had a fire burning, banishing the worst of the shadows. 

Alasin stood and turned, looking at Madam Flood. The shadows hid much of the woman’s face, but the lack of movement was apparent, even in the low, flickering light. Madam Flood was dead, a fact which was made more apparent when a rodent scurried out of her robes to stare, beady-eyed at Alasin. 

The princess screamed and backpedaled, ramming her legs into the table. Appendages smarting, she wrenched open the door and fled, sobbing. In her home, Madam Flood continued to sit and grin at the ceiling, unblinking, even as the rodent ventured back onto her lap, up her chest and to her face, where it began nibbling the soft meat of her eye.

My Darling Dead : Episode 8 | The Consequences

Hespa looked up from her own window as the princess let herself in. “Idiot child!” she shrieked and seized the nearest thing to hand, an urn containing her husband’s ashes, and threw it at her daughter with all her might. 

“Mother!” cried Alasin, dodging out of the way and taking refuge behind a nearby chair. Behind her, the wizard stood framed in the doorway. 

“Would it have killed you, would it have made your life so unworth living, to have murdered that oaf Heyworth in his bed at night rather than in full view of three loud-mouthed guards?” Hespa asked, hefting a large ornamental vase threateningly. 

“Mother–”

“Your Highness, girl,” snarled the queen. 

“Your Highness,” Alasin said, her words rushing forth in a babble. “Heyworth, that dog, attacked me, would have beaten me and perhaps more! I had to–”

“Kill him in perhaps the bloodiest manner you possibly could conceive right then and there, rather than endure his offenses and murder him in his bed at night?” Hespa finished, her voice cracking as she heaved the vase at her daughter in fury at the last word, shrieking as it crashed to the wall beside Alasin. “Heyworth would have died in silence and been easily disposed of with no one the wiser but you and his kingdom would have become ours. Now his kingdom is trying to kill ME and from OUR kingdom are coming rumblings of dissatisfaction with its figureheads. Which includes you, you witless imbecile.” 

The queen pulled a dagger from a hidden shelf in the serving table and advanced on Alasin, her teeth bared. Alasin cringed against the wall as her mother closed the distance. “This is your doing and I will not have you within this castle to wreak more havoc while I am being hunted. You are not welcome in this castle…” Hespa stopped, the tip of her dagger resting against her daughter’s throat. Alasin’s eyes were huge, rolling, terrified. Hespa stared mercilessly into her eyes and poked the dagger forward to nick Alasin’s smooth neck. “…henceforth.” 

To the wizard, time seemed to stand still, the princess impaled fractionally upon the queen’s dagger as the former tried desperately not to move. Then the latter flicked the dagger down, withdrawing its point and standing aside, leaving the path to the door open. Sapius stepped inside, extending a hand to the open door. As though freed from a spell, Alasin rushed past her mother and out the door, wordless noises of terror spilling from her mouth as she tore down the corridor and was lost to sight and sound as the wizard closed the door to the queen’s chamber. 

Queen Hespa poured herself a glass of wine and sat down in her favorite chair overlooking the window. “Come, wizard, join me.”

Sapius took the second chair beside the queen but did not take a glass of wine. He brought out his pipe, stoking and igniting it without a word, nor a look at the queen. 

“You don’t approve,” Hespa said, sipping from her glass. 

The wizard maintained his silence, peering out the window at the darkness. 

“Loosen your tongue, Sapius, lest I loosen it for you.”

“Madam, it seems improper to punish the princess for the consequences of carrying on as you wished her to,” said the wizard. 

“Can’t you see?” Hespa said, her voice irritable. “Banishing her will secure my safety. It will be impossible for her to ever feel affection for me.” 

“I daresay, Your Highness, that there was very little danger of that to begin with,” Sapius spoke softly, taking care to keep the disdain out of his voice. 

Hespa drained her glass and scoffed. “Ha! What knows a wizard of the trials of a mother, or a queen, especially one whose daughter is cursed in such a dangerous way?” Staggering a little, Hespa lurched to her feet, making for the wine again. 

“Quite right, Highness,” Sapius said, also rising to his feet. “May I depart, I have pressing business to tend to.”

“Yes, begone with you, Sapius,” snarled the queen, overflowing her goblet as she poured. “Begone with your judgmental words of which I have no need.” 

Without a word, the wizard departed, leaving the queen alone in her chamber, clutching an overflowing goblet of wine and staring at her reflection in the window. Her eyes focused on the outside world and her blood ran cold for a moment. Beyond that window, endless blackness with the pinpoints of light denoting civilization as campfires burned, each tended by a subject who may or may not want to murder her. 

She hurled the goblet at the reflection, shattering both it and the window. Wine splattered everywhere.

“See what you’ve done?” she shrieked at the door Alasin had exited. “See what you have wrought?”

When no answer was forthcoming, Hespa pulled the green cord hanging from the ceiling. A bell tolled somewhere in the castle. After a moment, a rapping sound came at the door and a handmaiden entered, looking apprehensive. 

“You summoned, Mightiness?”

“Bring me more wine and a fresh goblet,” Hespa said. “And get someone up here to fix this window, it’s as cold as death.”

“Your will, Highness.” The maiden bowed and retreated.

My Darling Dead: Episode 7 | The Assassin

The captain of the guard, Bortix Legional, stood atop the walls, looking down into the valley. It smelled like rain, and he was looking forward to being indoors for the night, having done his share of guard duties in seasons past. He was distracted from his vigil by the clattering of footsteps as a figure made its way up the dim steps. 

“Beggin yer pardon, sir,” the voice of Klinden the guardsman said, mounting the last step and turning to join Bortix at the battlements, “but there has been an unusual report from the northern realm.”

Bortix rolled his eyes. “There are always unusual reports from the northern realm, Mister Klinden,” he said. “Continue.” He reached into his shoulder bag for his pouch of tobacco and pipe, loading it and striking a match as Klinden continued. 

“Farmer in the near north sez that he came into his abode and beheld a man who resembled a rat. He ate a dead mouse, then attacked the farmer, until the farmer was able to subdue him.” He grinned a little. “Not a pretty sight. Took a rock, an’–”

“I can imagine, thank ye.” Bortix inhaled and sighed. “What the ‘ell am I s’posed to do about it?”

“That’s a good question, sir,” Klinden said, nodding. Bortix glowered at him.

A young cadet named Stroveta sprinted up the stairs and skidded to a halt. “Sir! There has been an assassination attempt upon the queen!”

Bortix stared. “Say again, soldier?”

“Chap with a camouflage robe managed to sneak in somehow, the queen disarmed him herself before he could put a blade in her but she’s not happy at all. She commands you attend her in her chamber after you interrogate the prisoner. Sir!” The cadet threw a salute and stood awaiting further orders. 

Bortix raised an eyebrow at Klinden. “Mind the watch, Mr Klinden. Cadet, back to your post.”

The queen and her daughter had long been students of self-defense, learning from Bortix how to disarm and disable in case their guards should fail in some regard. Bortix, while instructing them, gravely advised that failure on the part of his soldiers to protect the royal family could result in execution, but that a headless guard would never bring the queen or her daughter back to life. So when the man posing as a servant made a wild stab in Hespa’s direction, she reacted without thinking, snatching the man’s wrist, applying pressure to a point in his wrist and twisting his numb hand up behind his back, forcing to him to the ground. At a shout from her, five guards burst into her chamber, swords drawn, spears at the ready. They beheld their monarch standing behind a stranger who was kneeling before her, tears running down a very red face with an expression of agony as she jerked his arm ever higher between his shoulder blades. 

“This scum attempted to put a blade inside me,” snarled Hespa, breathing heavily as she addressed the first guard. “Find out who he is and where he comes from.” She jerked his arm up savagely and a loud, wet pop reverberated in the chamber and in the ears of every guard. The man sucked in a breath to scream but before a sound could escape his throat the queen’s voice was hissing in his ear. “Suffer in silence or I will end you myself right now.” In her hand suddenly appeared a long slim blade, the tip a fraction of an inch from the man’s eye. He shut his mouth, tears streaming down his face as the soldiers jerked him to his feet and marched him from the room. 

Hespa paced back and forth in her chamber, her mind still racing. Her narrow escape bothered her, not because of her own mortality but because it spoke to the lack of security from which the castle suffered. She was not in the habit of looking at her servants as they attended her and only the quick movement in the reflection of the window had alerted her in time to turn and block her would-be assassin’s arm.

There was a knock and Bortix stood in her doorway. “Your Highness.”

“Enter, Bortix, and tell me that the slime has divulged his master and purpose and departed this realm,” the queen snapped, moving to pour herself a glass of amber liquid and sip from it as Bortix made his report. 

“Lady, the assassin was sent by the kingdom of Heyworth, in retaliation for the death of the prince murdered by the Princess Alasin.”

The queen’s eyes grew wide and she swallowed half her drink. “Did you learn anything else?”

“Nay, milady. Alas we were unable to get anything more out of ‘im, for the techniques employed to acquire as much knowledge as we did left the prisoner so diminished that he expired shortly after sharing that information.” A ghost of a smile flitted around his mouth.

“Good,” muttered the queen.  

Alasin stood at her window, staring into the darkness and at her reflection. She blinked. It blinked. She smiled. 

It did not.

“Good evening, Princess.” 

Alasin jumped and whirled, half raising a hand to strike before she saw it was the wizard.

“Sapius!” she gasped. “Announce yourself!”

“I apologize madam, I merely acted in haste to inform you of your mother’s wishes.” He spread his hands apologetically.

“What is it?” Alasin asked, her hands shaking. “What does she want?”

“It regards the fate of Prince Heyworth, madam.”

“His fate was known to my mother and she was unbothered by it,” Alasin said, doing her best to maintain her composure. 

“Yes, but that was before she had survived an assassin’s attempt to dispatch her as retribution for your crime.” The wizard’s voice was flat, but chills reverberated from it. 

Alasin froze, her eyes moving back toward Sapius slowly, her face an expression of horror. As if on cue, there was a knocking at her chamber door. “Milady, guards.” 

The princess’s face was the color of parchment as she stammered out “Enter” and looked with terror to Sapius, who only smiled in that infuriating manner. 

The guard who entered was a simple man. He had been a farmer before he had tired of the physical labor and joined the armed forces. He had no  time for theater nor playing games and was a favorite to play cards with, for his face was an open book. Alasin read on it now, fear and loathing as the guard looked at her. 

“Princess, the queen bids you join her in her chamber.” He stepped back, into the corridor, spear at the ready, waiting for her.  

“You could not honestly have thought that your secret would not travel.” the wizard said, sounding severe. “Three soldiers beheld you in the act of murdering the prince. We had them killed as soon as possible, but it was too late. They have told, and those have told, and it didn’t take long for spies to relay the word to Heyworth kingdom that Princess Alasin murdered Prince Heyworth with her poisoned blade. It took even less time for a cadet to spread the word that the queen has already narrowly escaped assassination.”

Alasin’s eyes grew huge. “You mean… does everybody know?”

“You may draw that conclusion, Princess,” said Sapius.

My Darling Dead: Episode 5 – The Suitor

Prince Heyworth had come from the kingdom of Duyuwan, over a hundred leagues away, in troll country. He had grown into a tall strong man and had made quite a name for himself in his home kingdom thumping trolls before turning his attention to a far more unwinnable prize: the princess Alasin of Dandoich. Over a dozen suitors had left the kingdom with their hearts in tatters after attempting to tame the princess. Heyworth had been at the task for a week and was unable to admit, even to himself, that his goal was likely to be a doomed one.

The first night, he had arrived to a feast in his honor. The queen had seated Heyworth and Alasin together and, installing herself on his other side, proceeded with an interview clearly meant to highlight his virtues to the sullen princess to his right who was doodling on a scrap of parchment with a quill she had brought to the table. The queen continued in this vein for some time, making it difficult for Heyworth to consume any amount of food set before him, he was so occupied with his narrative. By the end of the feast, the princess had met his eyes once, and she retired early to her bedchamber without inviting him to join her. Each night had ended thus, and he felt as though he had spent the week trying to woo a brick wall.

Now it was approaching the evening meal and he had not laid eyes upon his target since that morning when, in response to his inquiry, she had curtly told him she was going out and would be back later. He had spent the day wandering the castle, yet again. He had gathered some knowledge from questioning the farrier as to the shoeing preferences of the castle’s horses, admired the swords in the armory and endured a highly uncomfortable tea with the queen, at which she had hinted extensively that any prince worth his salt should have her daughter smitten by now. He was just about to go up to the tallest tower and start counting the trees he could see through the gathering dusk in the distant forest when he heard the lookout’s shout.

“Princess Alasin returns! Have open the gates!”

An unconscious set to his jaw, Heyworth strode to the battlements overlooking the gate, watching the princess’s litter draw closer up the roadway leading to the castle. He tapped his fingers, glancing to the sunset. Nine hours she had been gone.

If he was to win her, he would have to instill respect.

He started down from the battlements as the drawbridge clanked down, the gate clanked up, then the process reversed itself as the litter came to a stop in its accustomed place near the stable. Without delay, the litter bearers dispersed, eager to put as much distance between themselves and its inhabitant as possible. As Heyworth stood there, waiting for the princess to emerge, he could hear a loud sniffing sound, as though one were sampling the fragrance of a good meal. No sooner had the sound dissipated than the Princess Alasin emerged, eyes streaming and a manic grin on her face that only fell slightly when she beheld him.

“Hey…it’s you…Haystack, am I right?” Alasin giggled, nearly losing her balance as she stepped down from the litter.

Heyworth reached out a hand to steady her. “Princess…please allow me to assist you.” He stepped forward, intending to put an arm about her waist. She pushed him away.

“No touching! Seriously, Haystack, I require no assistance. Please leave me.”

He caught her by the upper arm, tightening his grip so she could not pull away. “Well, my lady, I would like an explanation where you have been lo these many hours with no word of your whereabouts to your mother or suitor.” His grip tightened further.

Alasin snorted, her gaze sharpening. “I’m not sure who you think you are, by the gods, but I owe my mother nothing, and you less than that. Unhand me this instant!”

Heyworth felt a minor explosion in his chest as rage flooded through him. He grabbed her other arm. “That is all the disrespect I will tolerate from you, princess or no!” Digging his meaty fingers in, he pulled her toward the door leading to the castle’s sleeping quarters he was currently occupying. Alasin scratched and bit but Heyworth’s muscles had grown up fighting trolls and she was dragged, cursing, up the stairs toward his bedchamber. Fight though she did, the thought of screaming never entered her mind.

Slamming his chamber door behind them, Heyworth threw her from him, sending her flying across the room and knocking her head into one of the four poster bed’s pillar. She sat down hard, swaying. The world swam before her as the rug beneath the bed came into focus. She could see clumps of dust clinging to the fibers and she thought dazedly, must remember to thrash the cleaners for that.

She heard the sound of panting, like a dog’s. He was breathing fast as his hands worked his belt buckle and there was an ugly glint to his eyes. “Need a lesson in manners,” he muttered as he jerked the belt from his pant loops and adjusted himself. “Respect. Deference. You WILL give them to me.” Snapping the belt between his balled fists, he started toward her. “Princess, I regret that you’ve made me do this, but if you just–”

He stopped, mid-stride, narrowed eyes taking in the small blade poised to throw in Alasin’s hand from where she crouched on the floor beside the bed frame. Now she rose to her feet, keeping the blade leveled at him.

“Listen, cretin,” she said flatly, her breathing rapid, “the only reason you are not dead where you stand is that the fact of your death would benefit me less than your survival. Depart from here immediately and never darken the land near me for the remainder of your days. I am the princess of the realm and I have spoken. Now depart, before I am forced to end you regardless of the ramifications.”

Heyworth licked his lips, feeling the blood drain a little from his loins. The belt drooped. He attempted a sneer. “You’re just a princess. You haven’t got what it takes.” He stood a little taller to enhance his stature. “I have single-handedly slain more trolls and enemies than I can recall if–”

“Listen to me Heyworth,” Alasin said, stepping closer to him, her teeth bared. “You have no idea of who I am, nor what I am capable of. I suggest you leave, before I show you. You have no more warnings.” Her eyes never left his.

In other circumstances, this may have worked. But Heyworth’s trollish pride had been wounded, and the ugly look returned to his head. A grin that may have been a leer appeared on his face. He raised the belt and took a step closer as well. “Listen here, brat, wave that knife of yours in my face and your mother–”

Quicker than the eye could follow, an expression of fury flashed across Alasin’s face and letting out a scream, her arm flicked out and she cut his throat as deeply as she could, scraping her knife on his vertebrae. Blood spurted across her face and she wiped it from her eyes as Heyworth sank to the floor, dropping his belt and clawing at his throat as though he could mend the damage she had done. Alasin smirked as she sank to her knees, her eyes following those of the dying Prince Heyworth, waving the blade in front of his face as it drained of color.

“I told you, pig,” she hissed, wiping the knife on Heyworth’s cheek, leaving a bloody smear and a fresh gash as the keen blade kissed his cheek. “I owe my mother nothing.”

She pushed him and he fell backward, striking his head hard against the stone floor. Dazed and struggling for breath, he sank back, his view of the ceiling impeded by the large dark circles that had begun to spin in the forefront of his vision. He remembered hearing rumors throughout the kingdom that the princess carried a poison blade. He had discounted it as just the rumors of common folk. Now as the dark circles claimed him, for the first time, he wondered if he could have been wrong…

“Princess! Princess Alasin!”

The door crashed open. Alasin looked up to see three of the castle guards struggling to be the first through the door. The first guard came forward, uncertainty on his features. “Lady, the wizard bade us come to aid with the greatest of speed. Do you require assistance?”

She rose to her feet, looking disdainfully down at the dead prince. “Yes,” Alasin said, and prodded Heyworth’s corpse with her foot. “Remove this from the castle and inform the queen that her latest suitor is rejected.” She felt the bottle hanging between her breasts and her pulse quickened in anticipation as she hurried out the door.

The three guards looked at each other and at the body on the floor of the bedchamber. Together, the two older guards looked at the youngest. The eldest guard gestured at the corpse as they took their hasty leave of the room.

“Mind you soak up the blood after you move him.”

My Darling Dead: Episode 4 -The Princess

The princess Alasin poked her head out of the canopied carrier and screamed, “GUARDS!”

Immediately the litter ground to a halt. The guards stood rigid, not daring to look at the princess as they strained to maintain their hold on the rain-soaked handles to the carrier. Her litter consisted of a small canopied tent on a platform and required four servants to support the four corners by long poles protruding. Her blonde hair swung in her face as she stood, leaning out of the tent and directing her glare at the guard responsible for the front left of the carrier, who was looking both guilty and apprehensive as the rain battered the ground around them.

“Yes, Your Highness?” The guard had to twist his body in order to meet her eyes.

“Why are we still blundering around out here and not on our way back to the castle with our errand accomplished?” Alasin spat, her fingers gripping the canopy with white knuckles.

“Your order was to find the wizard in the forest, O fair one,” said the guard, unable to keep a hint of petulance out of his voice. “He is proving elusive.”

“And you are at the moment disobeying orders, guardsman,” sneered Alasin. “So if you want to keep your head, I suggest you accomplish your mission and FIND HIM!”

“Look, princess, he’s a flippin’ wizard and if he don’t want to be found we ain’t gonna find him,” the guard whined, giving voice to his chilled bones and soaked feet. “Now why don’t you let us all go back in and look for him tomorrow?”  

Alasin stared at the guard, whose indignation wilted. The blood of the more experienced litter bearers ran cold as her voice turned silky.

“What did you say?”

The guard gulped. “I said–” he began, then stopped. A quizzical expression spread across his face as he looked down at the pearl-handled dagger that was now growing from his chest. He looked back up at the Princess as the litter handle slipped from his grasp, his knees giving out from under him as he crumpled to the muddy earth. The other front bearer shifted to the right, catching the other handle and taking up the extra strain without a word.

“’Ain’t’ is such a filthy word,” sighed Alasin. She snapped her fingers in the direction of the dead guard. “Return my blade to me and let us go on.”

The front guard pulled the poisoned dagger from the chest of his dead compatriot and handed it back to the princess, his one arm quivering as it strove to support the front of the litter on its own. She took it from him and resumed her seat as she gestured. “Onward!”

The litter resumed its rocking motion as it moved forward through the path between the trees, albeit slower now that it was being born by three rather than four. Inside the canopy, the princess settled herself against the fabric throne, grumbling under her breath as she pulled the glass bottle from inside her robes, lifting it by its long silver chain. Normally filled with white powder, the bottle now held only a sprinkle of white at the very bottom. Grinding her teeth, Alasin unscrewed the cap and upended the bottle on the back of her hand. Jamming the hand to her face, she sniffed, inhaling the remainder of the powder in one go. One eye twitched, but that was all. The drugs the wizard had given her, in the beginning, had become so much a part of her life that she physically ached to be without them. She dreaded how she would begin to feel in just a few hours time unless the wizard was found. A pang of fear shot through her at the thought of suffering discomfort and she stuck her head out the canopy.

“Faster, fools!” she shrilled, clenching the curtains with shaking hands. “Unless you all want to end up like your friend back there!”

The pace increased.

The wizard in question was up in a tree seeking mistletoe when he heard the voice of the princess drawing nearer as she berated her litter bearers. He sighed, cutting one last bunch of mistletoe and stowing it in his harvest bag. Climbing down from the tree, he stood beside the trunk under the branches and watched the litter round the corner of the muddy path. The guards all wore identical expressions of weary resignation until the first guard’s face brightened upon seeing the wizard.

“Lady, the wizard Sapius appears!”

The princess ripped open the curtains of the litter and clawed her way down, scarcely waiting for the litter to come to a complete stop and nearly tripping and landing in the mud. The guards made no move to help her, and the wizard was sure he could detect a smile on the face of one of them.

“Wizard!” Alasin snarled, regaining her balance. “What do you do out here in this rain for hours? I have been waiting for your return!”

“I gather herbs and other ingredients, for my potions, Your Highness,” the wizard said with a little bow. “My apologies if I have kept you waiting overlong.”

Alasin scrubbed at her arms. “You have, but no matter. I come for your potions. My, er-” she glanced over her shoulder at the guards who were making quite a business of ignoring what she was saying. She finished in a hoarse whisper. “My medicine!”

A ghost of a smile flitted about the wizard’s own face. “But of course, my lady.” He turned his back to the guards and reached inside his robes, bringing out a duplicate bottle to the one she wore about her neck. “If you would?”

She pulled the slim chain over her head and handed the wizard the empty bottle, taking the full one from him in return. Her eyes lit up as she turned to go, but was stopped by the wizard’s hand on her arm.

“Be warned, lady. This making of your medicine is more powerful than the last bottle you had. You should only take a little for the same effect.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll be careful,” Alasin said, wrenching her arm away and making her way back through the mud to the litter. Climbing aboard, she barked “Back to the castle. Now!”

My Darling Dead: Episode 3 – The Cursed

The Kingdom of Dandoich lay in the grip of autumn. Frost coated the ground in thick layers every morning and the chill of the night did not fade until the sun was high. Grilled meat for suppers had given way to hot, savory stews. Hollow gourds had faces chiseled into them and were set outside to ward off evil spirits. The last crops were being harvested, numb fingers digging into the frozen dirt with thoughts of when it would all be over. But always, there was a shadow hanging over the kingdom, one which necessitated looking over one’s shoulder more often than in the old days.

Since the fairy’s so-called christening, old-timers agreed around the fires at night, the kingdom had never been the same. The castle had ceased to be a place of solace and refuge and had become a symbol of uncertainty, capable at any point of sweeping down and wreaking havoc upon their simple lives at a whim. The rains came less and the crops were poor, leading many to take on the life of a highwayman to feed their families, roaming the road and preying upon unwary travelers. Violence became the first and only response for many and the number of murders skyrocketed.

Those who had attended the christening hastened to spread the tale of the fairy’s vengeance and the shrieking queen who had ordered them all from the room. None of them had clearly heard what Esemli had screamed at the end, but their imaginations were only too happy to fill in those gaps in their knowledge. They whispered darkly to their neighbors about the supernatural powers possessed by the fae, both real and imagined. Their neighbors, in turn, hastened to spread the stories to their own circles. Gradually, the fairies grew to be feared, then hated, by many in the kingdom. The fact that most of the people in the kingdom had never seen a fairy, and that those who had laid eyes upon one had only done so at Princess Alasin’s christening, did not stop their tongues wagging.

The fairies were not as scarce as they seemed to the peasantry. Some were capable of invisibility, while many had powers of disguise. Still other fairies were bolder, trusting the oblivious nature of human beings to protect their identities. This had been done by the fae for thousands of years, but now, they were angered and insulted by what they heard on the lips and thoughts of the peasantry. Emboldened by Esemli’s act against the royal family, they brought their influence to bear on the peasantry and were driving the kingdom into a darkness inhabited by strange creatures whose minds had snapped.

“’ey, you dere,” screamed the peasant Supik, raising a scythe in a businesslike manner as he stood framed in the door. “Git outta me ‘ouse!”

The target of his ire was a small, skinny man dressed in rags which barely clung to his filthy frame. Ratlike, he sniffed around the floor of the peasant’s main room, ending up under the small table. His nose brushed the small stiff body of a mouse, the latest casualty in the peasant’s constant war against pests. Before the revolted Supik could say another word, the skinny rat-man had opened his mouth and taken a great bite of the carcass, biting it cleanly in two and chewing with relish.

With difficulty, the peasant swallowed his lunch again. “Cor, what th’ bloody ‘ell is wrong wid youse, mate?” He held out the scythe, keeping the heft of the weapon between the two of them. “You c’n eat all th’ mice ’round ‘ere ya can find but ya gotter do it ousside, got it?” He stood out of the doorway, gesturing with his scythe, his unease growing.

The rat-man was not listening. He had finished his horrible meal and continued his search throughout the hovel, sniffing around the hearth where some stew had slopped out of a large kettle when Supik had stirred a little too enthusiastically. The peasant frowned and tightened his grip on the scythe.

“’ere, mate, yew gotter get outta here. Me missus and liddle ‘uns will be back ‘ere any minute an-”

Without warning, the rat-man leapt to his feet and shrieked, no words, just a sound of rage and insanity. He charged at Supik, hands raised like claws. Supik, who was not expecting anything of the sort, fell over himself in his haste to exit the building and landed on his rear at the foot of his stairs. Pain exploded up his spine from his tailbone and he howled. Over his exclamation, he heard the clatter of his scythe and saw it out of reach across the dooryard. His eyes had no sooner absorbed this fact than they flew back to the direction of his front door in time to see the rat-man scuttle down the stairs on all fours and seize his leg.

Supik bellowed in fear and agony as the rat-man sunk his teeth into Supik’s leg, gnawing and shaking his head left and right. Supik’s hands scrabbled around the yard attempting to pull himself away but the rat-man hung on, splintered teeth ripping into the peasant’s flesh and carving out great chunks. The peasant was roaring, bellowing as he thrashed, kicking for all he was worth and attempting to pull himself to safety.

Like a limpet, the rat-man clung doggedly to the peasant’s flailing legs. Just as he could feel the rat-man’s teeth scrape the bone in his leg, Supik felt a bolt of pain crash into his flailing right hand as it connected harshly with a large rock. Seizing it, he leaned up and swung with the same motion, connecting the rock with the skull of the rat-man with all the force he could muster.

Thwock!

The rat man continued gnawing, but his eyes were glazed, his jaws working slower. One bloody eye rolled in its socket, coming to rest on the peasant. Supik screamed and brought the rock down on that eye again, and again, and again, until the thing clutching his legs looked no longer even remotely human and the rock in his hand was reduced to wet gravel.