by E. S. Carter
I search her face, trying to compare it to any of my memories from my time here, and I come up blank.
“Trust me, Henry. Vengeance will be yours.”
Vengeance will be yours.
I’ve heard these words before. I’ve lived by these words that are spoken by the faceless woman who penetrates my dreams.
I stare at the aged face of this petite female and see only truth, not an ounce of deception.
With a single nod, I grant her request, and she doesn’t hesitate for even a second. With arms around each child’s shoulders, she ushers them down the hallway, hot on the heels of the others who flee this mansion of horrors.
I should help them. I should make sure they are all safe.
No.
I must kill the one who imprisoned them here in the first place.
That is my aim; my only goal.
Once more I find myself standing before a floor to ceiling oil painting of St. Germaine, the patron saint of abused children.
This fucker thinks he’s funny.
I slash at the antique canvas, destroying artwork likely worth hundreds of thousands, and yet my anger does not ease.
Behind the now shredded carcass that once depicted a young shepherdess in a field, lays the door to Sir Michael Forester’s destruction.
I grab the severed hand of the long dead guard and once more use it to gain entry.
The lock opens with a soft hiss, and I use a smaller knife from my tool belt to impale the appendage into the door frame, thus ensuring it stays open.
Behind the door are wall-to-wall screens, projecting images from the inner chamber. This area is for Sir Michael to watch as his guests are worn down into husks of their former selves. It’s where he wanks off to the films he makes and then sells his movies on to other perverts, netting him millions. The films are of men, women, but mostly children, being reduced to mere holes fit for any use.
He’s recording right now.
The screens flicker with varying camera angles all displaying the same scene.
Sir Michael is naked from the waist down, his flabby arse tensing with each brutal thrust of his hips.
Beneath him is a young woman, bound but not gagged. I can see she is silent even though her mouth is open, her lips motionless. Her eyes are closed, and her body is only moving with the thrusts of her abuser.
Her cunt is filled with what appears to be a small wooden baton, while her anus is stretched wide to accommodate both Sir Michael’s tiny cock and a few fingers from each of his hands. Her long, tangled blonde hair drapes off the end of the bench and skims the dirty floor.
She is likely already dead. Her painfully thin and pale body an abstract collection of bruises and slash marks, yet her face is serene and completely unmarked.
I am struck immobile by her beauty. My feet glued to the spot, my gaze transfixed by her face.
It is only because I am studying her features intently that I notice her eyelids flicker just once, and that is enough for me to end this. End him and therefore her suffering in one swift slash of Missy through the soft skin of his neck.
I’d planned on toying with him before his demise. I had a whole list of fun games to play with Sir Michael, but this girl has changed all of my carefully laid out plans and now he must die swiftly.
Turning to the door at the side of the screens, I push it open just as Sir Michael spills his cum all over her shredded back.
The roar of his orgasm drowns out my entry, and before the last spurt of semen has made its way out of the tip of his dick, I have Missy at his throat. One drag of her serrated edge across his jugular is almost enough to decapitate the still ejaculating body of Sir Michael Forester.
I watch as crimson sprays from his neck, my grip across his forehead the only thing stopping him from collapsing on top of the body beneath him.
The ribbons of cum painting her back are quickly swallowed by the river of blood as it washes away his stain. It cleanses her with the coppery warmth of his lifeblood spilling against her abused skin.
When Sir Michael gurgles his last breath, I toss his broken body to the floor, not even bothering to take a trophy. Instead, I quickly unshackle the girl from the bench and pull her lifeless form into my arms.
Fuck, I’ve never seen anything as beautiful.
With one finger, I gently trace her brow leaving a streak of blood on her delicate skin.
Her eyelids flutter and open at my touch, and I suck in a breath when I look into their iridescent blue depths. She stares at me, unmoving. Those freakily coloured eyes boring straight through me. Her pupils do not dilate, her eyes never move, they just are. If I couldn’t feel her chest moving against mine, I would swear those eyes belonged to the dead.
She’s not dead, though. She’s alive, and when her small, delicate hands trace up over my chest and around my neck, I vow to bring life back into those eyes. I swear on the blood that pools around my feet, her eyes will never again see pain.
With that silent promise, I sheath my knife and stride from the room leaving bloody boot prints in my wake.
She burrows into my chest, her head laying just millimetres away from the trophy I took from my mother, and with her in my arms, I do not feel the need to acquire any more.
That need is sated because I know this girl in my arms is the ultimate trophy.
Grim
“Get the fucking Doc, now!” I roar as I leap up the steps towards Hunter Lodge, my prized trophy in my arms.
I drove like a maniac the entire journey back, pushing the Cadillac to its aged limits. The girl in my arms sprawled across my lap hindering my driving ability. Any other person, I would’ve laid in the back seat not caring if their comatose body survived the rocky ride. I couldn’t do that to her. Despite her frail body falling back into unconsciousness within moments of us leaving Sir Michael’s estate, my arms rebelled against letting her go. I spent the drive with one eye on the road and the other on her. I kept one hand on the wheel while the other held her naked, bloody and bruised body to my chest.
She smells like sunshine and freshly cut grass. It’s a scent that overtakes my senses and carves a valley into my disturbed and typically agitated brain, planting rows of wildflowers into its cracked and barren landscape. How can a person covered in so much filth smell like a summer’s day?
Anne rushes out of the lodge’s double doors. Cole Hunter’s trusted housekeeper is now the head of a palatial estate filled with the weak, tortured and abused.
“Bring her to the library,” she commands in her softly spoken voice as she wraps a soft blanket around the girl’s exposed body, tucking the fabric around her as best she can because I refuse to move her even an inch away from me.
“I’ll wake Doc,” she states, before rushing back into the Lodge leaving me staring down at the girl in my arms.
Cole’s estate also employs a full-time medic, two nurses and a slew of on-call psychiatric experts. It’s a far cry from what you’d expect from the newly resurrected head of The Red Order, a man more powerful than those who govern Europe and the rest of the western world.
With careful steps, I climb the stone staircase and pass through the inner entryway. To my right, the library’s double doors are propped wide open awaiting me. My eyes scan the room, always on alert, even more so with this unknown girl in my arms. My gaze lands on a plush, blood red sofa, big enough to seat half a dozen people, with deep filled cushions and a large woven blanket draped over the back.
My hands, more gently than I’ve ever known them to be, carefully deposit the girl on the cushions, rearranging them at her head so she’s safely cradled in their soft grasp. I eye the blanket hanging over the back and snatch it up quickly, tucking it around her frame and covering her with another layer of protection. I couldn’t care less that the blood and filth coating her skin will likely ruin all it touches.
“Grim,” a baritone voice interrupts my ministrations and I turn my head slowly to face its owner.
“Cole,” I reply,
not bothering to speak further, more intent on making sure every inch of this girl’s skin is protected from anyone’s roving eyes. Not that Cole would give a fuck. He has his own broken doll to take care of, despite the fact that Faye is in no way broken. That Craven bitch has a stronger will than many men I’ve met. Still, she belongs to Cole now and he has proved he will protect her with his life. It’s something I never thought I’d ever see - Cole Hunter in love with a Craven whore - and it’s also another story.
“Who is she to you, Grim? I’ve never seen you this bothered about a victim.”
I hear him come further into the room and instinctively straighten, using my bulk to hide more of the girl from his perusal.
“Not bothered, just waiting for the Doc,” I reply in an attempt to dismiss his curiosity.
“Then why are you shielding her, brother?” he pushes once more, forcing my hackles to raise and my fists to clench. I’ve never wanted to go against Cole Hunter, my brother not by blood but by bond, but I will if he pushes me further.
“I said she’s nobody,” I grit out through my teeth, my back still to him. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. She’ll likely be dead in an hour. I picked her up from Forester’s place. It’s done.”
“You took out Forester on your own?” Disbelief curls through his words. “For fuck’s sake, Grim, I told you not yet. I ordered you not to do that alone.” Anger replaces his disbelief lowering his deep voice further into what some might interpret as an animalistic warning growl. I don’t hear it as a threat. I hear it as a challenge.
Spinning on the balls of my feet to face him, my fists curl at my sides, my arms twitching with an unrestrained need to cause damage, to see blood.
“I just said, it’s done,” I state in a warning tone of my own. “Forester is a crumpled mass of wrinkled skin, lardy fat and bones. I slit his throat and left him on the floor of his studio, and I didn’t even cut off his maggoty cock as a souvenir. Happy now? Or should I give you the full run down? Well, first I took out the motherfucker in the security hut. He was too busy watching some chubby twat on YouTube. Every time the camera panned in on the porky fuckers, fat man tits, the security guy choked his scabby cock like he was trying to kill the fucking thing. After pinning him to his seat with a dagger through both eyes, I made sure to take his other hand to unlock all the fingerprint scanners on the gates. Then…”
“Enough,” he roars, stepping forward until we are toe-to-toe. “I gave you a direct order, Grim. You’ve disobeyed me yet again putting not only yourself but any innocent on that estate in danger.” Locking eyes with mine, he glares at me for a full twenty seconds in silence before closing them on a pained sigh.
“What if someone from The Red Order was left alive or saw you?”
“They weren’t, and they didn’t,” I interrupt.
His eyes fly open. “What if you’d failed?”
Cole never shows weakness in the form of emotions. Other than anger, rage and the occasional burst of fury, Cole is detached, aloof, calm and cold. But now his eyes hold something else. It’s faint, but it’s there nonetheless. Fear. Empathy. Compassion. Worry. All of it for me.
It pisses me the fuck off.
“I never fail. So if you’re done with this vomit inducing heart-to-heart, I need to find the fucking Doc before this bitch dies on your expensive couch.”
I don’t want to leave her, but I will if it means I can escape the concern in Cole’s eyes.
He knows what Forester did to me. He knows because I’d be dead if it weren’t for him saving me. I’d be forever memorialised in one of Forester’s sick films. My last breath forever played on a loop while perverted fuckers the world over jerked their cocks to a small, scarred boy’s demise.
“Get out of my way, Hunter,” I demand. My blood is boiling in my veins at the closeness of his body to mine. My mind screams at me to remove his eyes that look at me with glints of pity.
“Stay here with the girl,” he answers finally. “I’ll go and find out what’s taking the Doc so long.”
Then he’s gone.
I stare at the empty doorway, my breaths uneven in my throat. Blood rushes to my brain and pools at the back of my eyes until the pressure behind my lids builds, and only one thing will stop my whole being from exploding.
Release. Blood.
I turn and loom over the prone form of the girl, tucked up tightly beneath the blanket.
My hand inches close to my tool belt. My fingers skimming over my larger knives, ignoring Missy’s call, to land on a small filleting knife that I like to use for play.
Metal whispers across leather, the sound as erotic as a bitch’s moan, as I remove the blade from its sheath. Muscle memory raises my hand at the perfect angle, and I fix my eyes on the weak pulse in the girl’s neck. Then in one short, precise flick of my wrist I plunge the knife deep into the thick muscle of my thigh.
My eyes blink, the sharp, sweet pain clearing away my blood lust.
Warmth coats the tips of my fingers and I bring them to my mouth to savour the coppery taste. My breath evens out, and my body stills.
And I wait.
I wait to see her eyes again.
I wait to see her flinch when they land on my face.
I wait for the revulsion.
I wait for the fear.
I wait for my world to right itself.
I wait for the ecstasy of my recent kills, particularly Forester, to thicken my cock and for a need, other than the constant thirst for blood, to take hold of my body.
I wait.
Her eyes remain closed.
They do not open in my presence again.
Grim
I haven’t been back to Hunter Lodge for almost three weeks, and I don’t know whether the girl I left in the library is alive or dead. As soon as the Doc turned up, mumbling about being caught in an emergency birth, I legged it out of there. I didn’t even shower or change my blood and filth covered clothes.
Instinct told me to get away - away from her - and I never ignored my gut; my life ruled by this one impulse. It was what had kept me alive.
Even with distance, the urge to run refused to abate. It bore down on me like the Devil at my back. I could feel it breathing fire down my neck, waiting to sink its sharp teeth into my jugular. It whispered at my nape, promising to collect debts owed, demanding a pound of my flesh. I could feel the prick of its pitchfork on my thigh, the three barbed prongs searing my skin and threatening to toss me into the flames. I ran until I could run no more. My lungs burned, and the wound in my thigh bled profusely, blood loss and exhaustion quickly overtaking the adrenaline pulsing through my veins. But it still wasn’t far enough, so I fled.
I left the country under the guise of collecting debts owed to The Red Order. Now, I’m out here, roaming free, doing what I do best.
London, Paris, Rome, New York.
Nowhere was safe.
If you hid, I’d find you, and I’d enjoy every second of the chase.
It was what kept the Devil at bay. I fed him the flesh of others and kept him fat with souls until his belly distended and threatened to explode.
Better them than me.
Neither Cole nor Luke mentioned the girl during our frequent briefings, and I didn’t ask. Besides, what the fuck do I care?
And just on cue, my phone vibrates in my pocket. It can only be one of the Hunter brothers or maybe both on a conference call because nobody else has this number. Even if they did, there isn’t anyone else on this planet who would want to call me. You don’t make friends with Satan when he’s thirsting for your blood, know what I mean?
“Yes,” I answer abruptly, my eyes never leaving my target – a swish office block in downtown New York.
“We need Miller alive.” The line crackles with interference, but the words are crystal clear. There will be no soul to feed to my maker today.
“I’m sure I can take it easy on him. You’ll get him in one piece, more or less,” I tersely respond while avoiding the
horrified gaze of the waitress who is in the middle of replacing my empty mug of tea with a fresh one.
“Are you coming to collect the goods or am I bringing the package with me?” I ask, unconcerned if the girl with trembling hands and nervous eyes, who avoids looking at my scars, can hear my conversation. I want her to hear. Adding to her fear is a bonus thrill I wasn’t expecting, especially as today’s much-needed kill has been thwarted.
“The jet is waiting for you, bring Miller here,” Luke informs, taking over the conversation Cole started.
“We need to talk, Grim,” Cole adds, to the three-way conversation. “It’s about the girl.”
Those four words evoke an unfamiliar and confusing sensation to spread through my body. My stomach plummets to the floor before rising back up with the speed of a bullet, the force of impact seemingly crushing all my internal organs.
She’s dead.
“Did you hear me, brother? It’s time.”
I can’t answer him.
My lungs have desiccated in my chest, the remaining ash working its way up my windpipe and filling my mouth with sand.
The waitress who previously served me stands transfixed at an adjacent table, watching me with a morbid fascination as I convulse and choke.
“Grim, what’s happening? Can you hear us?” Luke’s voice is controlled and calm. If he’s worried about the sounds I’m making, he doesn’t show it.
I splutter in response. My mouth opening and closing around gulps of air that refuse to push past the blockage in my throat.
Some fucker has poisoned me. I’ll kill the bastards, starting with this conniving waitress.
A hand holding a brown paper take-out bag appears in my blurred vision.
“You’re having a panic attack. Use this.” The hand trembles, the delicate fingers tipped with pale pink polish quivering against the paper.
“Take it, before you pass out.” The detached voice of the waitress is shaky and uneven. Why the fuck is she bothering with the pretence of helping me? That bitch put something in my tea.
I eye the bag dangling before me, the world around it blurring in and out of focus as my hands grip pathetically at my neck and chest.
