Queen Of Blood (15 page)

His stomach knotted as the realization hit him: “Ms.Wickman—”

The wicked witch was dead. The proof was at his feet. This should be cause for celebration. Surely there was no longer anything
to fear now that she was gone. Why, then, did he not f eel like celebrating? But he knew why, really. It was the inexplicable
appearance of the picture. That and simple instinct. Something very wrong was happening and he didn’t have the first clue
what it might be. An unacceptable state of affairs. The thing to do now was summon Jack Paradise and begin an investigation.

But first…

He was reaching for the bottle of Beam when he felt a weight settle on the bed behind him. He tensed, expecting to feel the
blade of an assassin slide beneath his rib cage at any moment. It should have been impossible, even for the stealthiest of
assassins. The windows were boarded up. The front door, flanked by heavily armed guards, was the only way in or out of the
little cabin. Logic dictated this was someone who’d been here all along. He could only assume the intruder had employed some
magical means of cloaking their presence.

The intruder was closer now. He could feel her breath on the back of his neck. That the intruder was a woman was a thing he
sensed on a primitive level. He knew he should leap to his feet and make a break for the door, but his feet felt nailed to
the floor. He was as incapable of movement as a statue—and would remain so until the intruder released him from this paralyzed
state.

Anger flared inside him. “Stop fucking around and do it.”

Then he felt the cold sting of a large blade laid flat across his throat and closed his eyes. No need to wonder how it would
feel. He’d had a would-be assassin’s blade in his body before, back during his time Below. He’d survived that attempt on his
life, but he sensed this would be different. And less clumsy. This blade would open his carotid and his blood would splash
across the spilled evidence of his formerly exalted place in the world.

The intruder leaned against him. A pair of soft lips pressed against his ear. And a voice, wholly unfamiliar, whispered the
following:“Don’t you want to live?”

Jim swallowed hard. “Why are you toying with me?”

The woman turned the blade, pressed the sharp side to his trembling flesh. “Answer my question.” Her free hand slithered like
a snake around his midsection and moved to his crotch, where it grasped and squeezed. “Answer…Jim. Or I’ll cut this
off and feed it to you.”

“Honest answer…I don’t know.”

The woman slid off the bed to stand before him. Jim’s brow knitted in confusion at the sight of the stranger. She was wearing
a black
gi
. She was slim and small, maybe two or three inches over five feet. Her features were Asian, though her voice had been smooth
and inflectionless.

“Who the hell are you?”

She knelt before him and snatched up the picture of Ms. Wickman’s gutted body. “I am of the Order of the Dragon. My name is
not important.” She waved the picture at him. “I am here to speak to you about this. And to make a proposition.”

Jim realized the woman had relinquished her psychic grip on him. He grabbed the Jim Beam bottle and chugged from it. Then
he sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “Does this proposition involve any sort of threat to my people?”

“It involves the removal of a threat. For my organization, it is a matter of vengeance. This may mean sacrifices. You will
have to decide how high a price the removal of this threat is worth.”

An ache began behind Jim’s eyes as a familiar spiritual pain lanced him. For maybe the millionth time, he wished he’d not
chosen to assume a position of leadership. He loathed being the man who had to make life and death decisions for a larger
body of people. His father had been such a man. Alas, such regrets were useless at this juncture. The die had been cast for
him long, long ago.

He looked at her and spoke evenly:“Speak to me. Tell me your proposition. And then we’ll see just how much I feel like living
or dying.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Giselle awoke to the sound of birdsong. She opened her eyes and saw a large and multicolored creature perched at the foot
of the bed. It was a strange synthesis of parrot and vulture, with brightly colored feathers, a long, black beak, and large
and very sharp talons. The creature stared at her through glassy black eyes. She found its scrutiny unnerving and wondered
for a moment how the thing had gained entry to her quarters.

Then she recalled the previous evening’s festivities in a series of flashing images. She and Ursula had consumed large quantities
of a very expensive wine imported from France. There had been music, a girl playing a guitar. A large number of Apprentices
gathered in her quarters at her invitation. Slaves were brought in and put to use in various ways as entertainment. Clothes
were discarded and the party devolved to pure orgy. Giselle had partnered with several different men and women through the
course of the evening, exploring every possible sexual combination and position with Apprentices and slaves alike.

It had been, she recalled with a tired smile, the most purely debauched evening of her entire life. There had been interludes
during which slaves she’d fucked were then tortured and humiliated. Then things would shift back to party mode, with the consumption
of still more wine and numerous more carnal indulgences. As evening progressed toward dawn, the wine flowing through her system
caught up to her and things became a blur. She vaguely remembered accosting Ursula, violently removing the young Apprentice
perched atop the girl and then dragging her out to the balcony. Here her memories became even blurrier. She recalled some
frenzied moments of passion. But she’d been rough with the girl, maybe too rough, and there’d been anger. And then…

a sound, the loud crack of her fist across Ursula’s
jaw…the girl’s eyes rolling back in her head as her body
topples backward, falls against the balcony railing…

Giselle’s head snapped to her right and let out a sigh of relief as she saw Ursula lying beside her. The girl was unconscious,
her mouth hanging slack against the silk pillowcase. Her jaw sported a deep brown bruise and her flesh was gouged in other
places where Giselle had struck her. But she otherwise seemed okay. Giselle listened to her racing heart and felt her eyes
moisten as she realized how close she’d come to killing her lover.

She wiped the tears away at once. They were a sign of emotion. And emotion equaled weakness. She could not afford to be seen
as weak. Also, Ursula was not in the restraints Giselle normally put her in at bedtime. The lapse angered Giselle. She’d left
herself vulnerable, another thing she couldn’t allow to happen, a thing she’d worked hard to prevent.

Until last night.

She sat up in bed and surveyed the aftermath of the orgy. The physical effort amplified a dull ache in her head. Her mouth
felt as dry as parchment. She had a hangover, her first in more years than she could recall. She felt a touch of nausea at
the back of her throat, a sensation exacerbated by the pungent scents of piss, semen, and blood. This annoyed her, but not
nearly so much as the sight of unconscious bodies lounging everywhere. The crashed-out revelers were all nude or nearly nude,
some of them with their limbs still intwined, having passed out after sex. They were on the floor and in chairs. A young
male slave was lying atop a table in the library section of her quarters. A male Apprentice, nude, lay next to him, an arm
draped across the slave’s waist.

There was a lot of blood. Big splashes on the floor and the furniture. The decapitated head of a female slave sat impaled
on the tip of a spear, which was propped against the wall opposite the bed. Giselle couldn’t imagine where anyone had gotten
a spear. But that minor bit of mystery was forgotten as she noted the dark entrance to the secret torture chamber. Her heart
thudded. She couldn’t remember opening the door. The unnatural cold from the chamber was seeping into the air in her living
quarters. There was something insinuating about the chill, a hint of something alive and malignant, and her first instinct
was to seal the door at once. But she restrained herself, knowing she would first have to check the chamber for signs of anything
amiss.

The missing bits of her memory stirred the self-directed anger again. She had been sloppy. Unforgivably so. The party-cum-orgy
had been Ursula’s idea. She had become petulant of late, resentful even, chafing under the new restrictions imposed upon her.
She especially disliked being restrained in the evening, rebuffing Giselle’s initial attempts to soften the loss of her total
freedom by turning it into a kind of kinky game. Worst of all, from Giselle’s point of view, she’d become more subdued during
sex, feigning passion and being quite unsubtle about the fakery.

At first Giselle told herself she didn’t care.

But she did.

And the longer the situation went on the less she enjoyed lovemaking with Ursula. She missed that feeling of unquenchable
erotic hunger. The sex had become a rote act in recent days, a matter of going through the motions. She ached to feel that
fire again. The need bothered her, though. It was weakness. She could have her pick of lovers. Yet she only wanted Ursula.
Wanted her
completely
again. And so when Ursula begged for permission to throw the ultimate decadent party—along with an unsubtle hint that she
would show her gratitude in the way Giselle most desired—she’d acquiesced, had even allowed herself to believe it might be
a good idea to get loose and liven things up. She saw clearly now how wrong she had been. She thought of the Master and the
relentlessly merciless way he’d exerted authority. He’d managed to survive that way for centuries before he was finally killed.
Giselle had loathed the Master, but she decided she could yet learn some valuable lessons from him.

The strange vulture/parrot hybrid opened its beak and trilled another bit of song at her. It peered at her with simple animal
curiosity. Giselle smiled and held out an arm. The gentlest of mental nudges caused the creature to flap its wings and move
from the foot of the bed to Giselle’s extended forearm. She cooed at the creature and gently stroked the back of its head.
It tilted its head again and trilled another lovely burst of birdsong.

Giselle wrapped her fingers around its neck. Its eyes bulged a little and it emitted a little chirp as Giselle cooed reassurance.
Then it squawked as she tightened her grip and began to twist. Panic set in and it raised talons to slash at her, but another
mental nudge stilled the act of self-defense. And Giselle stared into the creature’s bulging eyes as she snapped its neck
with excruciating slowness.

There
, she thought.

Something relaxed inside her and she studied the dead bird’s limp body with grim satisfaction, puzzling over why she felt
so good about killing so helpless a creature. An impulse caused her to look at Ursula. She imagined taking Ursula’s neck in
her hands and doing to her what she’d done to the bird. She licked her lips and felt her nipples stiffen. Then the girl stirred
in her sleep, groaning and stretching out her body.

Giselle stared at the tender, exposed flesh of the girl’s slender neck. So pale. So lovely. She watched the rise and fall
of her breasts and thought of how they felt in her mouth, in her hands. And she sighed, knowing she still could not kill Ursula.
The girl would require a still greater level of discipline, that’s all.

She got out of the bed and carried the dead bird out to the balcony. The other world’s sun bathed her body in heat, dispelling
the cold that had seeped into her bones from the open torture chamber. She peered over the railing at the bustle of activity
in the rapidly expanding slave community everyone called Razor City. Here was something of which she could be proud. Her vision
for the community far exceeded in scope and daring anything the Master had accomplished with Below. There were many more hovels
along the perimeter of the community now, with more being erected every day to accomodate the steady influx of new slaves.
The large marketplace was open for business. Numerous other buildings were under construction. It was becoming a real city,
albeit a primitive one, like something from a twisted version of the Middle Ages. The community’s name derived from the high,
razor-tipped fences that defined its borders. Giselle loved the sound of it.
Razor City
. It sounded like a place where nightmares would go to live. So apt. The endless suffering of its pitiful denizens would exceed
the suffering of any oppressed group in human history, honoring the death gods enough to make her powerful almost beyond reckoning.

She tossed the dead bird over the railing and returned to her quarters. The nude revelers remained unconscious and for a moment
Giselle considered killing every one of them, such was her distress at the tainted condition of her quarters. She picked up
the spear and pried the dead slave’s head from its tip. She tossed the head aside, examined the sharp and blood-coated tip,
and imagined plunging it through the hearts of all present. The brutality would afford her a few moments of cold satisfaction,
but she decided against it. Several of the sleeping Apprentices were very good at what they did, and capable Apprentices were
significantly harder to replace than slaves.

And anyway, she knew she was only delaying the inevitable.

She braced herself with an intake of breath and stepped through the open entrance to the darkened torture chamber. The cold
seeped into her bones again. She muttered a spell and the ranks of candles grew flames. Her gaze was drawn immediately to
the limp figure splayed across the bottom of the dangling cage. No one else was in the room and there was nothing obviously
amiss. She still couldn’t recall opening the chamber, but she guessed Ursula had coerced her into doing it somehow.

Giselle moved deeper into the chamber and the figure at the bottom of the cage stirred and turned toward the sound of her
approach. Gwendolyn lifted her head and several tangled golden locks fell across her face. She smiled weakly through lips
puffy and coated with dried blood.

“Why, it’s the great usurper. What a privilege it is to be in your presence, Mistress.” She laughed, a ragged sound followed
by a deep, hacking cough. “Come to finish me off, have you? Where’s your kept girl, then? I’d think she’d want to be here
for this.”

Gwendolyn’s flesh was covered with bruises and livid scars, many of which pulsed with active infections. Patches of abraded
skin leaked blood and pus. She was missing an ear, a nipple, and several toes and fingers. There were multiple burn marks
on her abdomen and thighs. And her pussy had been sewn partially shut. Giselle had not participated in any of these tortures,
but she had been present for most of them, observing in a detached manner as Ursula enjoyed herself. But her lover’s endless
abuse of the prisoner had become tiresome, having dragged on for weeks beyond the point at which the former Apprentice should’ve
been put out of her misery.

Giselle smiled and moved closer to the cage, adjusting her grip on the spear as she worked to decide on the best possible
angle for a kill thrust. “Your tormentor is passed out on my bed. A touch too much wine last night, I’m afraid.”

Something flickered in Gwendolyn’s eyes as she watched the bloody spear tip move closer. The instinctive fear of one who senses
impending death, perhaps. But that impression was belied by the small smile that dimpled the corners of her puffy lips. And
she didn’t retreat as the spear tip passed through cage bars and touched a spot between her breasts. Giselle’s body tensed
as her hands tightened on the spear shaft. The girl was making it easy for her, almost offering herself up for sacrifice.
Which should not have been surprising. She had suffered immensely. Almost anyone in her position would welcome the release
of death.

And yet…

That smile.

Giselle frowned. “Something is wrong.”

Gwendolyn’s smile broadened, displaying bloody gums and cracked and chipped teeth. “You don’t know the half of it, Mistress.”
Another ragged laugh, followed by another whooping cough. She spat blood. Then she spoke in a singsong tone:
“I know something you don’t.”

Instinct told her to ignore the doomed girl’s vague insinuations. This was likely nothing more than one last mind-fuck, an
empty game designed to delay the impending end of her life a few minutes more. She pressed the tip of the spear forward a
millimeter or two, piercing pale flesh and drawing forth a trickle of blood that spilled along the girl’s protruding rib cage
before dripping through cage bars to splash the stone floor below. Gwendolyn winced as the spear tip entered her flesh, but
that damnable smile barely faltered.

“I don’t think you know anything.” Giselle twisted the spear tip, widening the gash between Gwendolyn’s breasts. A thicker
stream of blood flowed over the tip, fresh gore commingling with dried red flakes. “This is just a last-ditch shot at saving
your ass.”

Gwendolyn winced again and gritted her teeth as the spear tip continued to twist and delve deeper. “You fucked up when you
killed Ms. Wickman.”

Giselle arched an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”

“The tattoo on your back is lovely. It’s funny. Usually the only tattoos you can’t remember getting involve massive amounts
of tequila and a road trip to Tijuana.” Gwendolyn smiled again as the spear tip stopped twisting. “Got your attention, did
I?”

Giselle’s heart pounded. “What do you know about the tattoo?”

“Oh, a lot. I wonder if Ursula told you I was Ms. Wickman’s favorite, hmm?” Gwendolyn pushed the spear away and sat up, making
the stout chain groan as the cage swayed slightly. She pressed her face between cage bars and leered at Giselle. “She told
me things. Secrets. Tell me, Giselle, what do you know of the Order of the Dragon?”

Giselle swallowed a lump in her throat. She’d heard of the organization. Vague whispers of an ancient and powerful order founded
on principles of extreme self-discipline. But that was the extent of her knowledge. The Order, to her mind, was like the Masons
or the Illuminati. Formless phantoms lurking in shadowy, unknowable segments of society. They served as fodder for popular
fiction and gave conspiracy theory crackpots something to obsess over.