Subspecies: Bloodloss -- Chapter Eight, Part One
Subspecies: Bloodloss
Chapter 8/10
Author: memoriamvictus
Rating: R
Summary: Sequel to Subspecies: Bloodlines. Michelle discovers that the weight of obligation can be the heaviest shackle of all as she struggles to retain her hard-won freedom in the face of a fate that will not be denied.
Disclaimer: We don't know who it belongs to, but it certainly isn't me. This work is merely an act of affection and admiration; no offense or challenge is intended. Reader discretion is always advised.
Wordcount: 11, 462
Begin at the beginning.
Michelle could see nothing but the faded, stained floral pattern of the elderly rug her face was pressed into. The circles of white hot fire around her neck and her cruelly bent wrists felt unsurvivable, but she did her constrained best to buck against the weight between her shoulder blades.
“Please, could you bring her this way, my lord?”
Iris. Iris’s voice was smooth and unctuous, as if this happened every night. It honed an edge of fury in Michelle sharp enough to cut through the shock and suffering; she snarled as she kicked her legs frantically, almost gaining purchase with the toe of her boot against a sagging door until it swung open at her scrabbling.
Radu leaned into the leg that kept her trapped against the floor, crushing her against the carpet and using the extra leverage to choke up on the silver chain he’d bound her with.
She thought she’d been decapitated. It was only when the linked ovals bit into the balls of her wrist bones and she began to move, that she realized she’d lived, that it was possible to be in this much pain and still exist, because it could get worse, it could get so much worse. She kicked and howled as best she could through the silver chain strangling her windpipe, the searing, diseased agony that reignited with every movement putting her beyond any hope of rationality, and managed to accomplish nothing more than to knock over a side table as Radu dragged her inexorably down the hall.
“Just here, please, if you would, my lord.”
The feeling of being dragged onto a smooth, cool surface shocked her enough to kill the ragged yell in her throat. Seams scraped against her cheek, and she realized she must be on tile. Her eyes flew open: once-white ceramic tile, now filthy and blackening with age. The thick wooden legs of a table. A drain set in the floor. Radu’s boots ahead of her.
Her examination was interrupted as he abruptly twisted the chain and hauled her to her feet. A thin, whistling scream escaped her gritted teeth as the metal links sawed into her throat, her vision bleeding into wavering scarlet as her body tried to force her to look for a way out of this. The scream melted into a bubbling moan as Radu wrenched her arms up behind her back so hard her tendons creaked. The chain clicked against itself as it ground into her wrist bones. Radu stepped away.
Her knees sagged at the sudden loss of support, but she quickly straightened with a hoarse yelp as the movement put unbearable pressure on her wrists and drew the chain around her neck so tightly it yanked her chin up. She scrambled backwards and upright as hard as she could, straightening through her heels and pressing her back against the wall. The torment eased fractionally. Her vision began to dissolve back into shapes and movement.
“She wanted to see you as soon as possible, my lord. If you would be so gracious as to accompany me?”
Radu said nothing, but stepped towards her. Iris smoothly bent to open the door for him, and he swept through without so much as a backward glance at Michelle. Iris threw her an appraising look, her attention briefly focused above Michelle’s head. Then she gave a very bland, pleasant smile, stepped into the hallway, and shut the door behind her.
As soon as she was alone, Michelle sagged in her bonds, and immediately regretted it. She yanked her head back up before the chain could cut her too badly, but still gave a guttural hiss of pain as the metal abraded the wounds it had given her. She flattened her back once again, straightening her shoulders as hard as she could to provide her abused joints with some relief. As she sidled backwards, she realized that being on the balls of her feet gave her enough height to take some of the weight off her wrists. She was attached to something above and behind her; he’d hooked her onto-
“Are they gone?”
The soft, shuddering whisper scared Michelle so badly she jerked in her chains, nearly losing her balance, leaving her keening through her nose as her vision ran red once more. She steadied her feet as best she could and made herself snap into focus, whipping her gaze around the room with all the supernatural acuity she could muster.
The room was large, at least fifty feet across. Dingy white tile everywhere, filthy like rotting teeth. One door. Grates running along the walls. Heavy, thick hooks, dangling on chains from the ceiling, bolted into the walls. Stained wooden work tables, scattered and pushed against the walls at the far end, arranged in neat rows nearby. She nearly screamed again at the sight of the far one: Circe had snuck in, Circe had stretched out for a nap-but her vicious focused and showed that it was only a mummified corpse, detritus from some previous entertainment. Heavy shackles, metal and leather, at each end. But on one of them-
“Ana.”
Michelle’s vision wavered once more, this time with the unexpected flood of tears. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt them run down the corners of her eyes. She nearly swooned with relief, but the fear of more pain and the sudden, impossible burst of exaltation kept her composure for her. “Ana,” she said again, barely able to recognize the gravelly murmur her voice had become, “oh my God, Ana, I’m so glad you’re-are you okay?” Her eyes snapped open and she examined the woman strapped supine, two tables away. “Are you hurt?” Her cream sweater remained pristine, but that didn’t mean much.
Ana turned her head, craning her neck to look at Michelle. Her blonde hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, and blood slowly coagulated on a gash under her bruised left eye. “No,” she said, her whisper steadier. “Be careful. They can hear everything.”
“It’s just Circe. The corpse. Iris is just a person.” Her shoulders sagged, sending lances of pain shooting towards her neck. “I think.”
“Anything that dwells here is a devil.” There was unexpected steel in Ana’s voice, strong enough to stabilize Michelle’s own crumbling grip on herself. “Where are we? They were in my home. Put a bag over my head like I was a dissident.” Her low voice curdled with disgust.
“Club Muse. The vampire nest.” Michelle closed her eyes, fighting past the pain and the panic to try to weave a coherent tapestry from the unraveling threads of her life. “Circe is Radu’s mom. They hate each other. She brought him back to life-like, actual life. He’s breathing.” She let her eyelids droop shut as the shame of her selfish stupidity began to avalanche down upon her, no longer able to meet those riveted brown eyes as tears threatened once more. “I wanted you to see him,” she could barely make herself say. “I wanted you to see if you could use him to cure us, and… I guess that pissed him off.” She let her head lower until the links of the chain kissed the frayed edges of the wound they’d carved in her skin. The knowledge that she deserved it kept her from flinching at the pain, and she opened her eyes in misery. “I really thought we were coming here to rescue you,” she said through a throat that was trying to close. “I’m so sorry, Ana.”
The doctor exhaled forcibly through her nostrils, a muscle twitching at the corner of her jaw. She regarded Michelle unblinkingly, the arms cuffed above her head doing nothing to detract from her sternness. “The chain is hurting you,” she said.
“Yeah.” Michelle caught the nod just in time. “Silver. I’m stuck here while it’s on me.”
“You’re stuck to a hook. He put it through one of the holes. It’s far back behind the curve. You have… thirty centimeters of slack? It’s twisted. I can’t see. Perhaps if you jumped… forward? Brought your arms up?”
It took Michelle a moment to comprehend the change of subject; she felt a hot rush of self-recrimination as she glanced around the room, considering the hooks spaced along the walls. If she wanted forgiveness, she was going to have to earn it right now.
She rolled her eyes back painfully far into her head, able to catch the barest slice of the outside of the hook she was hung from without moving her head, confirming it was the same as the others. Even had her arms been free, it would have been a few inches above her outstretched fingers.
She flexed her elbows experimentally, easing back the instant the silver discs grated against her bones with a poorly suppressed hiss. She could hear it sliding against the back of her leather jacket. He’d done something like hogtie her; it was looped around her wrists and her neck in some way that her movements seemed to only pull tighter. She thought about trying to turn and show Ana the way it was bound-there had to be some way to untwist it-but there wasn’t much play in the chain, and she truly didn’t know if her neck could handle the friction of flat-edged silver in her freshly torn wounds.
Maybe she could jump forward.
She closed her eyes, needing a moment to steady herself; no matter what happened, she was going to have to try not to scream. She rose as high on the balls of her feet as she could, then, despite the thick soles and nearly unbroken-in leather of her hiking boots, managed to get on tiptoe. The weight on her wrists increased enough to make her bare her teeth, but the pressure on her neck slackened fractionally. The unexpected relief, no matter how slight, opened her eyes with surprise and pleasure. She was remarkably stable on her toes; she was slightly less afraid of tearing her own head off; she still had to figure the rest of this out.
Closing her eyes once more, she began to slowly raise her chin, her lips twitching with every slight movement of the chain against her raw meat. She felt a sudden prickle along her scalp as her movement tugged on the hair caught between her skin at the chain; both felt and heard the soft snaps as they began to break. Finally, the acid burn of the silver became too much to bear; she lowered her chin, removing the worst of the agony, and opened her eyes.
Despair froze her as she stood. Seen from across the room, the hooks didn’t seem that curved; looking straight up at one, it was obvious she was going to have to somehow get the chain to do an almost complete 180. She turned her attention to the chain itself, flat silver ovals separated by beads and links, a single one of which currently held her captive. It seemed flimsy enough to snap accidentally, but her frenzied efforts in the hall had failed to free her. There was undoubtedly something more to it than metal, and she knew throwing her weight against it would only injure her further.
Which was going to happen regardless.
She took a cautious step forward and, when nothing terribly ill befell her, another. She could hear the chain scraping against the metal as she successfully brought it forward. Another tiny step, two, three, and she flinched backwards, nearly falling to her feet as the jolt of the chain catching on the upward curve of the hook grounded straight into her wrists. She opened her eyes, and found she’d moved forward enough that she could once more see nothing but the hook’s outer curve.
Maybe she could jump forward, and… throw her upper body back? If she could jump hard enough to get the chain to fling itself upward, if it didn’t catch, if she got her timing just right…
She couldn’t let herself overthink it. She jumped.
For a second’s worth of disbelieving delight, it worked. She launched herself upwards with unexpected ease. The chain slid forward, following the hook’s curve effortlessly. The sudden release of pressure let her arch her shoulders backwards, trying to fling the chain around the last of the curve, and failed. The chain caught on the beginning of the straight end, yanking her short with a blinding white burst of all consuming agony, then slipped back to its original position, dumping her to the floor in a tangle of legs.
It wasn’t unlike the nails had been. It took her some time to return to herself, and when she did, she was back on her feet, pressed against the wall, hunching over as much as the chain allowed.
There was screaming; she was screaming, that was her scream, but there was something terribly wrong with it. She screamed so powerfully it felt as if her solar plexus might burst through her rib cage, the breath necessary razoring her airway so savagely she could pick the sensation out of the hellish cacophony that was her neck, but all she could hear was a strangled wet gurgle. She’d really done it this time: torn her throat open, ripped her voice box, done herself some kind of damage so hideous she couldn’t actually shriek her suffering any longer.
She managed to clamp her aching jaw shut on another cry, and was grateful that she’d managed to stop the awful, broken noise. She slumped against the wall, making herself be still, hoping that would make her be calm. Her mind was a diseased roil, the fresh dose of poisonous silver she’d given herself overwhelming her.
In a strange way, it helped; the malaise was so terrible it kept the internal pandemonium at bay as she fought for sanity-perhaps survival-moment by moment, awash in weakness and nausea.
The first thing she realized was that she was still hunched over, her weight pressing her shoulder into the tiled wall beside her. That was because, despite all else, the angle her arms were forced into caused such sharp, stabbing pain through her shoulders she was forced to notice it. Though it felt as if her spine was made of stone, she slowly straightened it, careful of her wrists; she realized distantly that her neck was such a blaze of torment she could no longer feel the chain moving, and how bad that must be. She leaned back against the wall, trying to keep her head still.
Eventually, she was able to open her eyes once more. Her vision swam in a familiar, human way, as if she’d just rubbed her eyes too hard. It took a moment for her to focus on Ana. The woman’s lips had parted slightly, her blonde brows deeply furrowed with concern; she made no sound or movement as she beheld what Michelle had made of herself.
“Sorry,” Michelle rasped. It felt like she’d swallowed chunks of glass. She sounded as bad as Radu, but it was a word, recognizable speech. That had to be good, from someone who was in such a state a practicing doctor would look at them that way. “I’ll-” But she couldn’t do it again, couldn’t make the muscles in her throat work, as if they’d been disconnected. She worried that she had, that the slight bit of movement that apology took had been the last straw for something important inside of her.
She remembered she had more important things to worry about.
She straightened once again, more strands of hair ripping from her scalp as she carefully balanced her skull on her neck, and wearily turned her eyes upwards. The hook just wasn’t that high above her. If her arms had been free, she could have easily hopped up to grab it. Maybe…
Unsure of what she intended to do, she experimentally raised a foot and planted it flat on the wall behind her. She thought was still strong; if she did it quickly enough, she might be able to walk herself up the wall. She leaned her weight on her raised foot, making sure the rubber sole of her boot had traction against the wall. That first step was going to be a doozy.
She braced her feet and launched herself upwards. Her sole held its purchase. Quicker than thought she planted the other foot next to it, driving herself further upward-
“-author of this calamity!”
The discordant, rusty screech obliterated Michelle’s concentration. Her foot slipped and she crashed back to the floor. Through pure luck, she managed to land on her feet, but the weight of the falling chain dragging against her wounds didn’t allow her to appreciate it. She fell back against the wall with a guttural, bestial cry, the all-consuming torment leaving her unsure if she was more disappointed in her failure or her survival.
The door swung open. Radu’s pale, spidery fingers splayed against it as he held it open for his mother.
It was impossible to believe she had mistaken the withered corpse on the table for the ancient witch as she lurched into the room. Circe moved with an unholy, mechanical energy, her hunched back frozen to stiff limbs that she piloted like a captain on a stormy sea. With a speed unbelievable of her frail frame, she stormed directly up to Michelle.
She couldn’t help but flinch as Circe thrust her face up towards Michelle’s, sublimating a hiss into fangs bared with pain. Circe showed her own teeth, yellowed, jagged, and worn with countless years, barely distinguishable from the leathery brown of her face. Her thin, spavined ribs wheezed with breath beneath her shroud, but she otherwise seemed as if she’d been dead for thousands of years, something that ought to be wrapped in bandages and sealed away where it couldn’t curse anyone. Her eye were a disgusting ruin of crumbling scar tissue and tattered flesh, the other barely visible beneath its sagging lid, the thin wisps of cobweb hair hanging in front of them clearly no impediment to her, but her vicious smile still managed to reach them as she began to speak.
“Be grateful, ill-gotten.” Her voice was dry and papery, but alight with malevolent glee. “In my eminence, I have managed to discover yet another use for even one such as you.”
Michelle would have turned her face away if she hadn’t feared the chain even more. Confronted with that decaying visage, knowing how utterly in its power she was, her instinct was to beg: to cringe, to plead for an opportunity to be of service, to do anything that might spare her what came next. Her panic might have saved her dignity, if not her life; she stood rooted to the spot, frozen in abject terror.
Circe’s smile, close-mouthed and satisfied, somehow managed to deepen the wrinkles chiseled into the worn planes of her cheeks. “You shall be such a lesson.”
A deep, horrible grating sound rumbled from within her chest. Michelle pressed herself against the wall as hard as she could, her eyes straining wide, as Circe threw her head back, and spat a gob of thick, viscous phlegm onto Michelle’s chest. It spattered beneath her collarbones, running downwards with a sickly heat.
Circe tilted her head, as if to admire her aim, and then sprung into action as if her key had been turned, stepping back and turning, her linens whirling around her. She stopped beside the table that held Ana, gazing down at her with something like fondness. “What a fine steed you shall make,” Circe said, reaching out to stroke her face.
Ana’s teeth snapped down on her brittle finger. Circe screeched like a rusting hinge and backhanded Ana with her free hand, slapping her mouth away and clutching her wounded hand to herself.
Arching against her restraints, Ana erupted into a torrent of rapid and furious Romanian. Michelle stared at her, eyes wide in awe, as she bellowed invective at her inhuman captor; cursing that heartfelt needed no translation. Her sweaty, red-faced defiance was the most beautiful thing Michelle had ever seen.
Iris stepped up to the head of the table, whipped off the silk scarf that had been elegantly tied around her neck, and forced it between Ana’s teeth. The doctor screamed as hard as she could through the fabric, thrashing wildly against her bonds, but Iris anticipated her movements and got the scarf knotted around the back of Ana’s head in a few clearly practiced movements. Ana made a high-pitched noise of frustration and flattened herself against the table, her chest heaving.
Circe looked down at her, what little Michelle could see of her face a mask of disgust. “A mule will bray,” she sneered, still holding her injured hand. Ana did her best to yell something through the gag; Circe’s lip curled even further as she reared back to spit in Ana’s face. She made a guttural noise of disgust, her body straining so hard to free herself that her back came off the table. Circe reached out to fist her bitten hand in the hair of Ana’s scalp and slammed her head against the table with a vicious crack.
Ana went limp.
“These are the things you cavort with, last and least of my children.” Her voice was still thin, but had taken on the tightness of a wire scraping on bone. “All mothers wish for their offspring to have young of their own that will vex them just as sorely. Your byblow has served me very well indeed.” Circe took a limping step away, fully turning her back, and Michelle finally felt safe enough to take her eyes off of her.
Iris stood beside the now closed door, trying very hard not to be noticed. Radu leaned in the corner behind it, his long brown hair obscuring his face, arms crossed at his chest, his fingers trailing from his biceps. “It is well that she has brought you some measure of comfort.”
“Comfort.” Circe’s voice was as low as her crepey throat would allow, snarled past choking disgust. “Measure not my comfort. Measure instead the waste of potential that your accursed existence represents. Measure instead the seemingly ineffable magnitude of your failure.” Circe stood before him, sides heaving, the yellow light making drapery of the ragged skin that hung from her pointed shoulder blades. Radu’s fingers tightened around his arms, but he made no other response until Circe struck him, her back concealing the blow from Michelle.
He dropped to his knees with a strangled gasp, wrapping his arms around his midsection as he doubled over. Circe seized his jaw in one withered hand, forcing him to look up at her. His eyes were lost in their shadowed hollows, but Michelle could see how high his eyebrows were raised and felt a strange, piteous terror.
“I waited,” Circe said slowly, as if she were giving a lesson, “for more than a thousand years for the conjunctions to align enough to allow for you. I invented a new form of calculation to track the spoor of such an aberration of the universe. I tamed the beast that got you on me! I tore a whole tribe from the fabric of reality!” She shook her head, and yanked his chin up, forcing him to meet her face. “And all I gained from it was you.”
It was minute, but it was there to her hunter’s eyes: Radu was shaking. Surely Circe could feel it through her ancient palm. Radu knelt before her and trembled, and it was so terrible and strange Michelle felt herself becoming light headed, her thoughts untethering like a loose balloon, so far out of her context she could no longer touch the earth. This was something that shouldn't be witnessed. This shouldn’t be happening.
“I have failed you.” Radu’s voice was thin and breathy, as if he were making an effort to speak smoothly. “Countless times, in countless ways. I beg for your grace in allowing me to demonstrate my penitence.”
“You, a penitent? You have no such capability. You are a base, venal creature that knows nothing but when to cower. You villain! You recreant!” Radu winced and attempted to pull his head back, but her hand held him fast. “No work is without its failures,” she hissed. “Flawed metal can be reforged into something of worth. Set yourself about my chores, son of Vladislas.” She bent lower, hunching in a way no human spine could have managed, until their faces were inches apart. “Busy yourself as well as you have ever been able. Render this work complete, and perhaps you may be able to survive. But fail me-” She jerked his chin up roughly, her cracking nails biting into soft flesh. “-and I shall discard you like all of the others.”
Radu’s breathing was short and shallow, his eyes closed. With the slow, precise care granted by centuries of death, he raised his hands to gently enfold the one gripping him. Circe let him loosen her grasp; he reverently turned her hand over, and raised it to place a kiss against her palm. “All shall be as you say,” he said, his voice a wavering rasp, “as ever it should have been.” Eyes still closed, he turned his head to rest his cheek against her palm.
Circe gave a guttural screech of disgust and shoved him away, yanking her hand back as if she’d touched something foul. His shoulders and head hit the wall with an audible thud; he remained where he had fallen.
“Mind me well!” she snapped, and spun away from him with audibly popping joints. Iris, her instincts impeccable, quickly turned the knob and pulled the door open, briefly obscuring Radu as his mother stormed into the hallway.
When Iris pulled the door shut once more, Radu had regained his feet. Michelle could do nothing but stare in disturbed revulsion. He stood motionless for a moment, then crossed to Iris in a single stride. She instinctively flinched back against the wall, pressing herself into the door frame, then got control of herself and straightened against it. She closed her eyes as he reached down beside her, so close his coat must have brushed her legs, but he had no designs on her. His hand settled on the handle of a brown leather case she must have wheeled in behind them, and hefted it easily.
He made his way towards Michelle, pausing for a moment to regard the corpse draped in black, before walking to the table laid with instruments, his back to Iris.
“Is there anything else I might bring you, my lord?” There was a slight, strange tremble underneath Iris’s polished tone.
“No.” Radu set the case down beside him and began slowly sliding the distillation equipment to the side, delicately cradled in his long fingers, careful not to touch the bundle of fabric.
They both watched him silently for a few moments as he cleared a work space. “While they were of no comparison, I have assisted my former master In some of his endeavors. If there is anything I can do…”
Radu gently set down a strangely shaped glass vessel, and laid his hands flat on the table before him. “He is your former master due to his reliance on such things.”
“Of course, my lord.” Her voice was as small as Michelle had ever heard it. She pressed her lips together firmly, as if to keep her mouth shut. “I apologize for my presumption,” she ventured. “It is only that I wish so greatly to be of service to you.”
Radu let his eyes droop shut, a strange, sleepy half-smile curving his mouth. He stood to his full height, turned, and crossed the room to her so fluidly he might have melted into shadow.
Iris didn’t flinch as he laid his left hand on the wall next to her face, tilting his head down to look into her eyes, but it was impossible to miss the sharp intake of breath or the rapid increase of her pulse. Michelle realized with disgust that she wasn’t scared; she was excited.
Radu lowered his head to speak into her ear, his hair brushing her cheek. “There will be endless time to discuss your service,” he rumbled, barely audible. He raised his free hand to run his talons along the curve of her jaw; she quivered beneath them. “But first,” he said, dropping his hand to the doorknob, “you must attend her.”
“Yes, my lord.” Her stammer was so slight a human might have missed it. Her lids fluttered closed, then snapped back open. “At once,” she said, most of her professionalism instantly restored. Radu swung the door wide, and she slipped away with no further word.
Chapter 8/10
Author: memoriamvictus
Rating: R
Summary: Sequel to Subspecies: Bloodlines. Michelle discovers that the weight of obligation can be the heaviest shackle of all as she struggles to retain her hard-won freedom in the face of a fate that will not be denied.
Disclaimer: We don't know who it belongs to, but it certainly isn't me. This work is merely an act of affection and admiration; no offense or challenge is intended. Reader discretion is always advised.
Wordcount: 11, 462
Begin at the beginning.
Michelle could see nothing but the faded, stained floral pattern of the elderly rug her face was pressed into. The circles of white hot fire around her neck and her cruelly bent wrists felt unsurvivable, but she did her constrained best to buck against the weight between her shoulder blades.
“Please, could you bring her this way, my lord?”
Iris. Iris’s voice was smooth and unctuous, as if this happened every night. It honed an edge of fury in Michelle sharp enough to cut through the shock and suffering; she snarled as she kicked her legs frantically, almost gaining purchase with the toe of her boot against a sagging door until it swung open at her scrabbling.
Radu leaned into the leg that kept her trapped against the floor, crushing her against the carpet and using the extra leverage to choke up on the silver chain he’d bound her with.
She thought she’d been decapitated. It was only when the linked ovals bit into the balls of her wrist bones and she began to move, that she realized she’d lived, that it was possible to be in this much pain and still exist, because it could get worse, it could get so much worse. She kicked and howled as best she could through the silver chain strangling her windpipe, the searing, diseased agony that reignited with every movement putting her beyond any hope of rationality, and managed to accomplish nothing more than to knock over a side table as Radu dragged her inexorably down the hall.
“Just here, please, if you would, my lord.”
The feeling of being dragged onto a smooth, cool surface shocked her enough to kill the ragged yell in her throat. Seams scraped against her cheek, and she realized she must be on tile. Her eyes flew open: once-white ceramic tile, now filthy and blackening with age. The thick wooden legs of a table. A drain set in the floor. Radu’s boots ahead of her.
Her examination was interrupted as he abruptly twisted the chain and hauled her to her feet. A thin, whistling scream escaped her gritted teeth as the metal links sawed into her throat, her vision bleeding into wavering scarlet as her body tried to force her to look for a way out of this. The scream melted into a bubbling moan as Radu wrenched her arms up behind her back so hard her tendons creaked. The chain clicked against itself as it ground into her wrist bones. Radu stepped away.
Her knees sagged at the sudden loss of support, but she quickly straightened with a hoarse yelp as the movement put unbearable pressure on her wrists and drew the chain around her neck so tightly it yanked her chin up. She scrambled backwards and upright as hard as she could, straightening through her heels and pressing her back against the wall. The torment eased fractionally. Her vision began to dissolve back into shapes and movement.
“She wanted to see you as soon as possible, my lord. If you would be so gracious as to accompany me?”
Radu said nothing, but stepped towards her. Iris smoothly bent to open the door for him, and he swept through without so much as a backward glance at Michelle. Iris threw her an appraising look, her attention briefly focused above Michelle’s head. Then she gave a very bland, pleasant smile, stepped into the hallway, and shut the door behind her.
As soon as she was alone, Michelle sagged in her bonds, and immediately regretted it. She yanked her head back up before the chain could cut her too badly, but still gave a guttural hiss of pain as the metal abraded the wounds it had given her. She flattened her back once again, straightening her shoulders as hard as she could to provide her abused joints with some relief. As she sidled backwards, she realized that being on the balls of her feet gave her enough height to take some of the weight off her wrists. She was attached to something above and behind her; he’d hooked her onto-
“Are they gone?”
The soft, shuddering whisper scared Michelle so badly she jerked in her chains, nearly losing her balance, leaving her keening through her nose as her vision ran red once more. She steadied her feet as best she could and made herself snap into focus, whipping her gaze around the room with all the supernatural acuity she could muster.
The room was large, at least fifty feet across. Dingy white tile everywhere, filthy like rotting teeth. One door. Grates running along the walls. Heavy, thick hooks, dangling on chains from the ceiling, bolted into the walls. Stained wooden work tables, scattered and pushed against the walls at the far end, arranged in neat rows nearby. She nearly screamed again at the sight of the far one: Circe had snuck in, Circe had stretched out for a nap-but her vicious focused and showed that it was only a mummified corpse, detritus from some previous entertainment. Heavy shackles, metal and leather, at each end. But on one of them-
“Ana.”
Michelle’s vision wavered once more, this time with the unexpected flood of tears. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt them run down the corners of her eyes. She nearly swooned with relief, but the fear of more pain and the sudden, impossible burst of exaltation kept her composure for her. “Ana,” she said again, barely able to recognize the gravelly murmur her voice had become, “oh my God, Ana, I’m so glad you’re-are you okay?” Her eyes snapped open and she examined the woman strapped supine, two tables away. “Are you hurt?” Her cream sweater remained pristine, but that didn’t mean much.
Ana turned her head, craning her neck to look at Michelle. Her blonde hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, and blood slowly coagulated on a gash under her bruised left eye. “No,” she said, her whisper steadier. “Be careful. They can hear everything.”
“It’s just Circe. The corpse. Iris is just a person.” Her shoulders sagged, sending lances of pain shooting towards her neck. “I think.”
“Anything that dwells here is a devil.” There was unexpected steel in Ana’s voice, strong enough to stabilize Michelle’s own crumbling grip on herself. “Where are we? They were in my home. Put a bag over my head like I was a dissident.” Her low voice curdled with disgust.
“Club Muse. The vampire nest.” Michelle closed her eyes, fighting past the pain and the panic to try to weave a coherent tapestry from the unraveling threads of her life. “Circe is Radu’s mom. They hate each other. She brought him back to life-like, actual life. He’s breathing.” She let her eyelids droop shut as the shame of her selfish stupidity began to avalanche down upon her, no longer able to meet those riveted brown eyes as tears threatened once more. “I wanted you to see him,” she could barely make herself say. “I wanted you to see if you could use him to cure us, and… I guess that pissed him off.” She let her head lower until the links of the chain kissed the frayed edges of the wound they’d carved in her skin. The knowledge that she deserved it kept her from flinching at the pain, and she opened her eyes in misery. “I really thought we were coming here to rescue you,” she said through a throat that was trying to close. “I’m so sorry, Ana.”
The doctor exhaled forcibly through her nostrils, a muscle twitching at the corner of her jaw. She regarded Michelle unblinkingly, the arms cuffed above her head doing nothing to detract from her sternness. “The chain is hurting you,” she said.
“Yeah.” Michelle caught the nod just in time. “Silver. I’m stuck here while it’s on me.”
“You’re stuck to a hook. He put it through one of the holes. It’s far back behind the curve. You have… thirty centimeters of slack? It’s twisted. I can’t see. Perhaps if you jumped… forward? Brought your arms up?”
It took Michelle a moment to comprehend the change of subject; she felt a hot rush of self-recrimination as she glanced around the room, considering the hooks spaced along the walls. If she wanted forgiveness, she was going to have to earn it right now.
She rolled her eyes back painfully far into her head, able to catch the barest slice of the outside of the hook she was hung from without moving her head, confirming it was the same as the others. Even had her arms been free, it would have been a few inches above her outstretched fingers.
She flexed her elbows experimentally, easing back the instant the silver discs grated against her bones with a poorly suppressed hiss. She could hear it sliding against the back of her leather jacket. He’d done something like hogtie her; it was looped around her wrists and her neck in some way that her movements seemed to only pull tighter. She thought about trying to turn and show Ana the way it was bound-there had to be some way to untwist it-but there wasn’t much play in the chain, and she truly didn’t know if her neck could handle the friction of flat-edged silver in her freshly torn wounds.
Maybe she could jump forward.
She closed her eyes, needing a moment to steady herself; no matter what happened, she was going to have to try not to scream. She rose as high on the balls of her feet as she could, then, despite the thick soles and nearly unbroken-in leather of her hiking boots, managed to get on tiptoe. The weight on her wrists increased enough to make her bare her teeth, but the pressure on her neck slackened fractionally. The unexpected relief, no matter how slight, opened her eyes with surprise and pleasure. She was remarkably stable on her toes; she was slightly less afraid of tearing her own head off; she still had to figure the rest of this out.
Closing her eyes once more, she began to slowly raise her chin, her lips twitching with every slight movement of the chain against her raw meat. She felt a sudden prickle along her scalp as her movement tugged on the hair caught between her skin at the chain; both felt and heard the soft snaps as they began to break. Finally, the acid burn of the silver became too much to bear; she lowered her chin, removing the worst of the agony, and opened her eyes.
Despair froze her as she stood. Seen from across the room, the hooks didn’t seem that curved; looking straight up at one, it was obvious she was going to have to somehow get the chain to do an almost complete 180. She turned her attention to the chain itself, flat silver ovals separated by beads and links, a single one of which currently held her captive. It seemed flimsy enough to snap accidentally, but her frenzied efforts in the hall had failed to free her. There was undoubtedly something more to it than metal, and she knew throwing her weight against it would only injure her further.
Which was going to happen regardless.
She took a cautious step forward and, when nothing terribly ill befell her, another. She could hear the chain scraping against the metal as she successfully brought it forward. Another tiny step, two, three, and she flinched backwards, nearly falling to her feet as the jolt of the chain catching on the upward curve of the hook grounded straight into her wrists. She opened her eyes, and found she’d moved forward enough that she could once more see nothing but the hook’s outer curve.
Maybe she could jump forward, and… throw her upper body back? If she could jump hard enough to get the chain to fling itself upward, if it didn’t catch, if she got her timing just right…
She couldn’t let herself overthink it. She jumped.
For a second’s worth of disbelieving delight, it worked. She launched herself upwards with unexpected ease. The chain slid forward, following the hook’s curve effortlessly. The sudden release of pressure let her arch her shoulders backwards, trying to fling the chain around the last of the curve, and failed. The chain caught on the beginning of the straight end, yanking her short with a blinding white burst of all consuming agony, then slipped back to its original position, dumping her to the floor in a tangle of legs.
It wasn’t unlike the nails had been. It took her some time to return to herself, and when she did, she was back on her feet, pressed against the wall, hunching over as much as the chain allowed.
There was screaming; she was screaming, that was her scream, but there was something terribly wrong with it. She screamed so powerfully it felt as if her solar plexus might burst through her rib cage, the breath necessary razoring her airway so savagely she could pick the sensation out of the hellish cacophony that was her neck, but all she could hear was a strangled wet gurgle. She’d really done it this time: torn her throat open, ripped her voice box, done herself some kind of damage so hideous she couldn’t actually shriek her suffering any longer.
She managed to clamp her aching jaw shut on another cry, and was grateful that she’d managed to stop the awful, broken noise. She slumped against the wall, making herself be still, hoping that would make her be calm. Her mind was a diseased roil, the fresh dose of poisonous silver she’d given herself overwhelming her.
In a strange way, it helped; the malaise was so terrible it kept the internal pandemonium at bay as she fought for sanity-perhaps survival-moment by moment, awash in weakness and nausea.
The first thing she realized was that she was still hunched over, her weight pressing her shoulder into the tiled wall beside her. That was because, despite all else, the angle her arms were forced into caused such sharp, stabbing pain through her shoulders she was forced to notice it. Though it felt as if her spine was made of stone, she slowly straightened it, careful of her wrists; she realized distantly that her neck was such a blaze of torment she could no longer feel the chain moving, and how bad that must be. She leaned back against the wall, trying to keep her head still.
Eventually, she was able to open her eyes once more. Her vision swam in a familiar, human way, as if she’d just rubbed her eyes too hard. It took a moment for her to focus on Ana. The woman’s lips had parted slightly, her blonde brows deeply furrowed with concern; she made no sound or movement as she beheld what Michelle had made of herself.
“Sorry,” Michelle rasped. It felt like she’d swallowed chunks of glass. She sounded as bad as Radu, but it was a word, recognizable speech. That had to be good, from someone who was in such a state a practicing doctor would look at them that way. “I’ll-” But she couldn’t do it again, couldn’t make the muscles in her throat work, as if they’d been disconnected. She worried that she had, that the slight bit of movement that apology took had been the last straw for something important inside of her.
She remembered she had more important things to worry about.
She straightened once again, more strands of hair ripping from her scalp as she carefully balanced her skull on her neck, and wearily turned her eyes upwards. The hook just wasn’t that high above her. If her arms had been free, she could have easily hopped up to grab it. Maybe…
Unsure of what she intended to do, she experimentally raised a foot and planted it flat on the wall behind her. She thought was still strong; if she did it quickly enough, she might be able to walk herself up the wall. She leaned her weight on her raised foot, making sure the rubber sole of her boot had traction against the wall. That first step was going to be a doozy.
She braced her feet and launched herself upwards. Her sole held its purchase. Quicker than thought she planted the other foot next to it, driving herself further upward-
“-author of this calamity!”
The discordant, rusty screech obliterated Michelle’s concentration. Her foot slipped and she crashed back to the floor. Through pure luck, she managed to land on her feet, but the weight of the falling chain dragging against her wounds didn’t allow her to appreciate it. She fell back against the wall with a guttural, bestial cry, the all-consuming torment leaving her unsure if she was more disappointed in her failure or her survival.
The door swung open. Radu’s pale, spidery fingers splayed against it as he held it open for his mother.
It was impossible to believe she had mistaken the withered corpse on the table for the ancient witch as she lurched into the room. Circe moved with an unholy, mechanical energy, her hunched back frozen to stiff limbs that she piloted like a captain on a stormy sea. With a speed unbelievable of her frail frame, she stormed directly up to Michelle.
She couldn’t help but flinch as Circe thrust her face up towards Michelle’s, sublimating a hiss into fangs bared with pain. Circe showed her own teeth, yellowed, jagged, and worn with countless years, barely distinguishable from the leathery brown of her face. Her thin, spavined ribs wheezed with breath beneath her shroud, but she otherwise seemed as if she’d been dead for thousands of years, something that ought to be wrapped in bandages and sealed away where it couldn’t curse anyone. Her eye were a disgusting ruin of crumbling scar tissue and tattered flesh, the other barely visible beneath its sagging lid, the thin wisps of cobweb hair hanging in front of them clearly no impediment to her, but her vicious smile still managed to reach them as she began to speak.
“Be grateful, ill-gotten.” Her voice was dry and papery, but alight with malevolent glee. “In my eminence, I have managed to discover yet another use for even one such as you.”
Michelle would have turned her face away if she hadn’t feared the chain even more. Confronted with that decaying visage, knowing how utterly in its power she was, her instinct was to beg: to cringe, to plead for an opportunity to be of service, to do anything that might spare her what came next. Her panic might have saved her dignity, if not her life; she stood rooted to the spot, frozen in abject terror.
Circe’s smile, close-mouthed and satisfied, somehow managed to deepen the wrinkles chiseled into the worn planes of her cheeks. “You shall be such a lesson.”
A deep, horrible grating sound rumbled from within her chest. Michelle pressed herself against the wall as hard as she could, her eyes straining wide, as Circe threw her head back, and spat a gob of thick, viscous phlegm onto Michelle’s chest. It spattered beneath her collarbones, running downwards with a sickly heat.
Circe tilted her head, as if to admire her aim, and then sprung into action as if her key had been turned, stepping back and turning, her linens whirling around her. She stopped beside the table that held Ana, gazing down at her with something like fondness. “What a fine steed you shall make,” Circe said, reaching out to stroke her face.
Ana’s teeth snapped down on her brittle finger. Circe screeched like a rusting hinge and backhanded Ana with her free hand, slapping her mouth away and clutching her wounded hand to herself.
Arching against her restraints, Ana erupted into a torrent of rapid and furious Romanian. Michelle stared at her, eyes wide in awe, as she bellowed invective at her inhuman captor; cursing that heartfelt needed no translation. Her sweaty, red-faced defiance was the most beautiful thing Michelle had ever seen.
Iris stepped up to the head of the table, whipped off the silk scarf that had been elegantly tied around her neck, and forced it between Ana’s teeth. The doctor screamed as hard as she could through the fabric, thrashing wildly against her bonds, but Iris anticipated her movements and got the scarf knotted around the back of Ana’s head in a few clearly practiced movements. Ana made a high-pitched noise of frustration and flattened herself against the table, her chest heaving.
Circe looked down at her, what little Michelle could see of her face a mask of disgust. “A mule will bray,” she sneered, still holding her injured hand. Ana did her best to yell something through the gag; Circe’s lip curled even further as she reared back to spit in Ana’s face. She made a guttural noise of disgust, her body straining so hard to free herself that her back came off the table. Circe reached out to fist her bitten hand in the hair of Ana’s scalp and slammed her head against the table with a vicious crack.
Ana went limp.
“These are the things you cavort with, last and least of my children.” Her voice was still thin, but had taken on the tightness of a wire scraping on bone. “All mothers wish for their offspring to have young of their own that will vex them just as sorely. Your byblow has served me very well indeed.” Circe took a limping step away, fully turning her back, and Michelle finally felt safe enough to take her eyes off of her.
Iris stood beside the now closed door, trying very hard not to be noticed. Radu leaned in the corner behind it, his long brown hair obscuring his face, arms crossed at his chest, his fingers trailing from his biceps. “It is well that she has brought you some measure of comfort.”
“Comfort.” Circe’s voice was as low as her crepey throat would allow, snarled past choking disgust. “Measure not my comfort. Measure instead the waste of potential that your accursed existence represents. Measure instead the seemingly ineffable magnitude of your failure.” Circe stood before him, sides heaving, the yellow light making drapery of the ragged skin that hung from her pointed shoulder blades. Radu’s fingers tightened around his arms, but he made no other response until Circe struck him, her back concealing the blow from Michelle.
He dropped to his knees with a strangled gasp, wrapping his arms around his midsection as he doubled over. Circe seized his jaw in one withered hand, forcing him to look up at her. His eyes were lost in their shadowed hollows, but Michelle could see how high his eyebrows were raised and felt a strange, piteous terror.
“I waited,” Circe said slowly, as if she were giving a lesson, “for more than a thousand years for the conjunctions to align enough to allow for you. I invented a new form of calculation to track the spoor of such an aberration of the universe. I tamed the beast that got you on me! I tore a whole tribe from the fabric of reality!” She shook her head, and yanked his chin up, forcing him to meet her face. “And all I gained from it was you.”
It was minute, but it was there to her hunter’s eyes: Radu was shaking. Surely Circe could feel it through her ancient palm. Radu knelt before her and trembled, and it was so terrible and strange Michelle felt herself becoming light headed, her thoughts untethering like a loose balloon, so far out of her context she could no longer touch the earth. This was something that shouldn't be witnessed. This shouldn’t be happening.
“I have failed you.” Radu’s voice was thin and breathy, as if he were making an effort to speak smoothly. “Countless times, in countless ways. I beg for your grace in allowing me to demonstrate my penitence.”
“You, a penitent? You have no such capability. You are a base, venal creature that knows nothing but when to cower. You villain! You recreant!” Radu winced and attempted to pull his head back, but her hand held him fast. “No work is without its failures,” she hissed. “Flawed metal can be reforged into something of worth. Set yourself about my chores, son of Vladislas.” She bent lower, hunching in a way no human spine could have managed, until their faces were inches apart. “Busy yourself as well as you have ever been able. Render this work complete, and perhaps you may be able to survive. But fail me-” She jerked his chin up roughly, her cracking nails biting into soft flesh. “-and I shall discard you like all of the others.”
Radu’s breathing was short and shallow, his eyes closed. With the slow, precise care granted by centuries of death, he raised his hands to gently enfold the one gripping him. Circe let him loosen her grasp; he reverently turned her hand over, and raised it to place a kiss against her palm. “All shall be as you say,” he said, his voice a wavering rasp, “as ever it should have been.” Eyes still closed, he turned his head to rest his cheek against her palm.
Circe gave a guttural screech of disgust and shoved him away, yanking her hand back as if she’d touched something foul. His shoulders and head hit the wall with an audible thud; he remained where he had fallen.
“Mind me well!” she snapped, and spun away from him with audibly popping joints. Iris, her instincts impeccable, quickly turned the knob and pulled the door open, briefly obscuring Radu as his mother stormed into the hallway.
When Iris pulled the door shut once more, Radu had regained his feet. Michelle could do nothing but stare in disturbed revulsion. He stood motionless for a moment, then crossed to Iris in a single stride. She instinctively flinched back against the wall, pressing herself into the door frame, then got control of herself and straightened against it. She closed her eyes as he reached down beside her, so close his coat must have brushed her legs, but he had no designs on her. His hand settled on the handle of a brown leather case she must have wheeled in behind them, and hefted it easily.
He made his way towards Michelle, pausing for a moment to regard the corpse draped in black, before walking to the table laid with instruments, his back to Iris.
“Is there anything else I might bring you, my lord?” There was a slight, strange tremble underneath Iris’s polished tone.
“No.” Radu set the case down beside him and began slowly sliding the distillation equipment to the side, delicately cradled in his long fingers, careful not to touch the bundle of fabric.
They both watched him silently for a few moments as he cleared a work space. “While they were of no comparison, I have assisted my former master In some of his endeavors. If there is anything I can do…”
Radu gently set down a strangely shaped glass vessel, and laid his hands flat on the table before him. “He is your former master due to his reliance on such things.”
“Of course, my lord.” Her voice was as small as Michelle had ever heard it. She pressed her lips together firmly, as if to keep her mouth shut. “I apologize for my presumption,” she ventured. “It is only that I wish so greatly to be of service to you.”
Radu let his eyes droop shut, a strange, sleepy half-smile curving his mouth. He stood to his full height, turned, and crossed the room to her so fluidly he might have melted into shadow.
Iris didn’t flinch as he laid his left hand on the wall next to her face, tilting his head down to look into her eyes, but it was impossible to miss the sharp intake of breath or the rapid increase of her pulse. Michelle realized with disgust that she wasn’t scared; she was excited.
Radu lowered his head to speak into her ear, his hair brushing her cheek. “There will be endless time to discuss your service,” he rumbled, barely audible. He raised his free hand to run his talons along the curve of her jaw; she quivered beneath them. “But first,” he said, dropping his hand to the doorknob, “you must attend her.”
“Yes, my lord.” Her stammer was so slight a human might have missed it. Her lids fluttered closed, then snapped back open. “At once,” she said, most of her professionalism instantly restored. Radu swung the door wide, and she slipped away with no further word.