Moonslave (2 page)

The wolfen female span and looked up, casting her gaze first to Kira and Cassandra, and then to the new arrival. Releasing a snarling roar, she vaulted the car and stormed towards the duke.

With a savage smirk he frowned, drawing his concentration, focusing his strength and his will. Kira had thought him another vampire when she first met him, but now it seemed he was something far different.

Locking his fingers into an occult configuration, the intricate knot of digits were swallowed by a welling opaque light, the jet halo devouring the light, paining the eyes to bear witness to it.

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The skies shivered, a restless and disturbed quiver running through the fabric of reality as its limits were tested. With a crackling boom a jagged arc of radiant white lanced from the heavens. The lightning strike connected with Corin, ripping into her sprinting form, hiding her amidst an eruption of dazzling sparks and light.

The intensity momentarily dazzled Kira, making her blink and see nothing but the afterimage of the lightning, etched onto her vision. As it cleared she saw the woman on her knees, panting, her fur charred, smoke rising from her flesh as she shook with endurance.

With a muttered growl she threw herself back to her feet and tried to continue, her steps weak, dropping from side to side, her awareness faltering from the extreme straits of the ordeal.

The echo of the thunderclap still rolled upon the sky, powerful in their ears as all watched the duke produce a slender arcane blade. The small knife had a wavy edge, the flat surface flecked with small teeth, the hilt and guard shaped like extended claws, encrusted with dark gems and strange runes.

Lifting the blade he extended his tongue and ran the edge down the centre, drawing blood. Adding three more slashes, he withdrew the organ. Closing his eyes with concentration, playful jolts of midnight power started to crackle across the expensive cut of his suit, jumping from limb to limb as his skin seemed to shiver. With a startled jolt he leant over, retching, his eyes flashing open and reduced to pulsing wells of darkness. His jaws strained impossibly wide, and a terrible gurgling choke poured free.

His neck rippled with the passage of some internal trespasser, and from the presented rictus spewed a snaking tendril. The solid length spilled over his lips, 12

rearing up, slithering against the roof, continuing to extract itself.

More and more poured free, the amount produced impossible to fit within his structure. When the acute tail finally came free the writhing coils of squirming condensed shadow had to have been at least fifty feet in length.

The duke licked his lips and straightened, leaving his creation to do its work. The beast spilled down the side of the building, rushing towards the staggering woman and throwing itself around her. She squealed in panic, slashing at the body of the conjuration, but where her claws ripped through it the sundered segments merely continued, each part of it filled with animation and purpose. Her arms were captured and drawn in, the coils surrounding her form, slowly cocooning her, their cumulative strength more than a match for her in her enfeebled condition.

Howling in dismay she thrashed against them, her muscles flexing and straining with all their might. The cry was cut off as one end of the tendril plunged down her throat, making her eyes bulge in calamity, the addition of swift lengths about her snout, stopping her from biting it off. The creation began to feed her recycled air; air filled with soporific gases, and as the final coils gathered in and smothered her she was fully mummified, the bonds sealing together, leaving no portion of her visible.

The massive form swayed like a tree in the wind, and then dropped, cracking the tarmac with her weight. She wriggled in her sheath for a few seconds and then went still, dispatched into coma by the duke’s sorcerous beast.

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Having loaded their captive in a van, the taskforce returned to the subterranean palace. The realm was hidden deep, engulfing a vast nuclear shelter and several forsaken constructions of antiquity, converting them, changing them into a vast labyrinth of pain and pleasure.

Kira sighed as her straps were tightened back into place, lifting her calves and pressing them to her thighs, restoring her complete pet mode.

The seneschal slapped Kira’s rump, the clap of leather to latex sending warm stinging feeling through the dense material.

Tugging on her lead, she was set scampering beside her owner, the woman striding down the stone corridors of the upper palace, the other slaves bowing deeply as she passed them by. The activity had increased immensely since last she had travelled through the upper regions where guests and visitors of the queen’s will resided.

The wide passage of the main corridor gave way to side routes, each first accessing a large and comfortably outfitted lounge, a crossroads that fed into interior passages where entrance to personal rooms was given.

It was in these chambers that the bedrooms, the facilities, the playrooms and dungeons were located.

Whole sets of these self-sufficient wings were devoted to one type of visitor. As well as their own serviles, each set of representatives had an army of royal slaves attending their desires. Servants of the queen ferried possessions and gifts, delivered furniture slaves, towed 14

in harem slaves, transported and escorted with as spry a step as their various bondage uniforms permitted.

Amidst the plethora of royal subjects the guests themselves were easily distinguished. As she was led through she spotted the locations devoted to the Japanese Clan. The oriental vampire warlords were regal and sombre as they moved through their lounge, pets at their feet, handmaidens trailing in their wake. The concubines held slaves in tow as well, and amidst their numbers she spotted one of the latex nuns that had tormented her on stage for the delectation of the group.

Kira tried to focus on the woman, to see if she could spot what one of the six the woman was, but she was carried past the entrance before she could tell.

The bustle of life was a contrast to the serene quiet she had seen earlier, and she could now see that such a time of docile tranquillity was merely the calm before this debauched storm.

From her path she peeked into another lounge, this one laden with men and woman from what seemed to be all walks of life. Dressed immaculately, some wore suits or other business attire, and others were more in favour of ceremonial robes, the hems laced with strange runes.

Others placed themselves clearly in the category of the dominant, adorning themselves with leather, latex and vinyl, but all of them without exception were visions of pulchritude. There was not a single blemish on their skin, no impairment to their features or their bodies. Yet it was a strange perfection, one that seemed somehow false.

The skin seemed real enough, but it felt illusionary, as though it were not really part of them. There was something that just didn’t look natural, a niggling doubt Kira could not fully place but which would not depart.

Amidst them she spotted Duke Khardekk, emphatically 15

gesturing as he relayed the story of Corin’s capture to his fellows, his audience entranced by his words. It seemed little different to the scene of a country club or group of friends socialising.

However, their personal slaves were far less mundane of visage. The men and women were moulded like clay by the hands and will of their owners. The same castes as existed in the palace were evident, but the imposition of a uniform upon the flesh of the slave had not been enough for their masters and mistresses.

Kira looked with aghast and appalled fascination upon the sights. For a moment she had thought them adorned by flesh-coloured sculptures and additions to their uniform, but then, as though this misconception were brushed aside to let reality dawn, she noticed that the additions were organic. Those formed into pets had real tails, snouts, pricked ears and paws, their fingers retracted and formed into accurate representations of bestial extremities.

Those charged with providing light were restrained stems, their bodies squeezed into a rigid stance, their skin merged to deny them limbs as the skin of their bald heads released a soft phosphorus radiance. With the very structure of their cells reconfigured to create light, they simply stood and shuddered on occasion, the process of such generation not being a completely painless one.

The furniture slaves were rigid and inflexible, their uniforms aided by the manipulation of their very structure to hold them still and help serve their singular purpose.

A coat stand had fingers emerging from every area of her torso, and she held them crooked to serve her purpose more effectively. The tables had been merged with chitinous shells, making their backs smooth and flat so as to accept more burdens. Those serving as seat or 16

footstool had their arms and legs fused to their sides, depriving them of any other lot, their mouths sealed over into a sheet of unblemished flesh. A woman shoe cleaner had been treated to similar melding, and her long and prehensile tongue spilled from her lips as she crawled to and fro, the yard long stalk able to dedicate to this task with great efficiency.

The source of such terrible mutilation was immediately apparent, for the men and women holding court in the lounge made constant displays of their power.

Crackling flashes of black energy, tainted by putrid greens, grim blues, ghastly reds and rancid yellows were often set lose, the shamanic followers of the Wyrm using their sorcerous abilities for even the most trivial things.

In the moments she grasped while passing this sight she caught sight of slaves being transformed. The hands of owners merely took hold of the limb and guided their arcane will into it, making the meat and skin dance to their hermetic tune and reform as they desired. The effects were also being reversed, changing slaves into and out of various castes, releasing them to serve more effectively in a fully human capacity.

Removed from their presence, Kira had a horrible sense of apprehension about ever surrendering to one of these wizards. To be transformed and twisted at their mere glance and touch? It was a tantalising thought, but one that also disturbed her greatly. It was such an alien power to her, something so strange and unknown that it caused an instinctive and consuming dread.

A tug to the lead overwhelmed her loitering intent and Kira continued her walk, passing by the last of the inhabited wings before she reached the access hall of the throne room and the private regions of the palace.

These were by far the most intimidating of the guests; 17

the lupine followers of the Wyrm. Black of fur they reclined in their full wolfen forms, as mountains of lethal muscle, claw and fang, their eyes burning with incarnadine auras.

Royal slaves tended their needs, intrigued and frightened by the monstrous beasts before them. The strength and pernicious qualities of the lupine were well known to all vampires; it was what made them the most deadly of archenemies, and was the reason for the nervousness of the slaves.

From her lessons of initiation she knew that these beasts followed the dark and corrupted power called the Wyrm, fighting against the purity of the earth that other lupines defended and called Gaia. The vampire was as much a felon against the Wyrm with its abstaining from the laws of nature as it was to Gaia, just as these beasts were enemies of the witches and warlocks from the previous wing. The dark shaman stole and manipulated the power of their chosen force, enraging the lupines who were fed it to permit their radical changes and who defended their deity with fervour.

Yet all who had come here were guests of the queen and were held in peace by a devotion to debauchery.

Where ordinary versions of their kind would fall on each other with fangs, claws and charms, here, in the hallowed halls of the queen, these decadent sects and tribes had found an uneasy peace and common ground.

Already in the waiting room certain guests contemplated their chance at an audience with her majesty, monitored by grim-faced vampire guards. The goliath sentinels were placed strategically about the room, their weapons ready, their eyes hidden behind dark goggles, making it clear that peace was the only option here.

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Kira had not seen them in this area before, but with so many feudal groups abroad it was obvious that precautions had been taken to ensure all knew who ruled here. Some of those waiting were people from the ranks of the guests, others were vampire lords or ghoul messengers from the rest of the world, stationed in private quarters as they awaited the completion of their business.

Many were uneasy at the sight of the carnal slavery about them, the vampires rigid and aloof, disdainful of such prurience. They were here to see the queen on matters of business and finance, questions of power and territory. Controlling the city had set her tendrils of influence throughout the globe, her power vast, her claws delving deep into multi-national corporations, banks, businesses, politics, the stock exchanges, even the military, law enforcement and organised crime. With such might at her disposal, other vampire houses that required assistance or her permission to undertake their schemes readily made the long journey to seek audience with her or her advisors.

The elevator arrived, the massive doors opening and letting three men step out and march gruffly away from the trio of guards stationed within. Kira’s jaw dropped at the sight of them. She knew their faces, she knew them as high level politicians from aboard, people she had seen on television dozens of times speaking out against their various targeted problems and causes. The notion of some supernatural force holding the reigns of power in every quarter had seemed a little incredulous, but now this sight had confirmed it. In fact, it made sense.

Who would not be swayed when offered immortality, strength and immunity to disease and harm, the power of backing from these creatures, and the possibility of being made a full vampire once they proved themselves 19

worthy? Some mortals could be gained for far less of course, simply for money. If any suffered from incurable illness or ailment the blood would be their cure, and wavering fealty would result in deprivation and swift ageing and death. It was a state of affairs so perfect it would be easy to leave it undetected, for only through betrayal would it come to light, and who would risk such a foolish gamble with the high level stakes that were involved?