by Deb E Howell
“No, no, no, no! Please don’t make me.” She clenched her fingers, and flinched as her skin stretched around multiple pin pricks. Blood dribbled from several holes, and another critter-like device scuttled over her, sucking up the trails so that no blood would be wasted.
“You really shouldn’t move while they’re doing their work.” Braph’s voice caressed her, one more horror; his voice was so silky smooth, it was sickening. “Think of it as doing Duffirk a favour,” Braph said as he wound the boy’s arm back in and unbuckled the pale, limp wrists. The spidery devices continued to climb over Llew, stick her with needles, fill, and scuttle away. “I’m sure you know how it is, Llew, having been a child of the streets yourself.” Braph dragged the boy’s body from the chair and dumped him on the floor then helped Nilv strap the struggling girl down. The girl had already seen enough to know what was coming. Her bare feet scrabbled for purchase on the stone floor, but between Braph and Nilv there was no escape. She screamed at them, a chilling sound surprisingly lacking in fear, yet loaded with hatred. Braph shut her up with a back-handed slap.
Llew already felt weak again, with her mind barely able to register that these were kids just like her, fighting to survive each day.
“You can’t . . . ” Her voice trailed off and she struggled to keep her eyes open. Her arms hardly moved when she called on them to fight against the restraints. She hated her body for being too weak to fight. She hated her power for being so destructive, yet so desirable to those who cared little for its negative consequences. No room for self-pity, Llewella. It never gets you anywhere. A snort escaped her. She wouldn’t be going anywhere, self-pity or no.
“In fact, you could think of it as helping the kids themselves,” Braph continued. “You know the misery they live day-in, day-out, after all.”
The squeal of metal on metal rang out over the background ticks and scrapes as the chair arm wound out again. This time Llew didn’t look at the girl, couldn’t look at her. This time, she wept. The girl’s ghi swept through Llew, feeding her tears.
She couldn’t live like this.
Something behind Llew made an incredible hiss and Braph walked back to it.
“Well, well,” he breathed.
“What is it, master?” Nilv asked from his post by the captives.
Llew sensed Braph step up beside her.
“Open your eyes and take a look at this,” he said.
Even if she had opened her eyes, Llew wouldn’t have seen much. Tears filled them and streamed down her face. But she wouldn’t look.
She wouldn’t live like this.
“It’s so dark, master.”
“Isn’t it?” Braph sounded annoyed. “Open your eyes. Open them!” His hot breath washed over Llew’s face as he leaned in close to her.
Llew blinked her eyes open, her vision blurred and streaky. Braph wiped a leather-clad thumb across one eye and her brain made the necessary adjustments to combine the two versions of the world before her: one clear, one smeared.
She hadn’t noticed, but the spiders had completed their task, and now not one clambered over or pricked her. Braph held a deep purple crystal clasped between the tips of a pair of metal tongs.
“That’s what you made today,” he said, as if she should be proud of herself. He held another crystal out between the gloved thumb and forefinger of his other hand. “This is what you made on your first day.”
Repulsed yet fascinated, Llew examined the two crystals. The one in the hand was purple, too, but it was slightly redder and paler than the freshly pressed one, which was the same hue as the one she had from her mother, though it still held its lustre. Why such different colours between the two crystals from herself?
The final breath hissed from the girl and Llew clamped her eyes shut, turned away and swallowed down her revulsion. She heard Nilv winding the girl’s arm back, but she didn’t open her eyes. She wanted to be sick.
“Not even curious as to why?” Braph asked from close by her ear.
“No,” she snapped. Of course she was, but she was afraid she’d already guessed right, and knew it would mean a repeat of this type of blood-letting session if the darker crystals gave Braph even more power.
“Your mother produced these for a while. Not quite as dark. They were . . . addictive.” Llew sensed Braph’s smile. “It’s okay, Llewella.” That made her turn to him, eyes open. How could he think any of this was okay? “Your mother took a while to get used to it, too.”
“Did she ever?”
Braph’s lips twitched, almost releasing the sneer. Llew’s mother would never have loved this man. He pocketed the crystals and Llew was returned to her room, the chain only removed when she was inside. The door closed and the lock clicked.
* * *
Llew read for a while until her brain suddenly clouded over and she had to put the book down. She didn’t even have the wherewithal to place it on her bedside table, she just let it fall beside her feather pillow. She closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She might as well sleep. There was little else to do.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway outside and Llew’s eyes snapped open. The house filled with a cat’s wail. No, not a cat, the baby – but it always sounded so cat-like at first. A woman’s voice, sharp and then soothing, but loud enough, trying to be heard over the ululation. But why would Braph have a child in the house? The sick thought entered her mind that it could have been Braph’s own child by her mother, but she clamped down on it. Besides, there was another woman in the house. She could just as easily be the mother.
Another creak. The door clicked. Llew couldn’t move. Click, and the door creaked open a little.
Llew’s head felt too heavy to lift, but angling her eyes down she caught the reflection of light off Braph’s eye. Braph pushed the door open, stepping into the room and coming to sit on the edge of the bed by her thigh. The soft bed sunk under his weight. Llew’s hip slid, braced by his backside. He smiled and reached a hand across to her other leg, sliding the hem of her dress to mid-thigh.
Llew’s skin tingled, initially from the pleasure of touch and then from revulsion at who was doing the touching. For the first time since entering the room, he looked directly at her. But, to Llew, it was like he wasn’t there at all. His mouth smiled at her while his eyes were empty, seeming to look past her, seeing something, or someone else entirely. In colour and shape, his eyes were almost identical to Jonas’, but when Jonas looked at Llew, he looked at her like no one before. He saw her, he accepted her, and he asked her to accept him.
Braph’s hand squeezed her thigh, bringing her abruptly back into the moment. She lifted her arm to brush his hand aside, but her arm didn’t, in fact, move. The fog had cleared from her head and settled, instead, in her muscles. Her shallow breathing quickened, and her heart raced. She knew why he was there.
“No.” But no matter how hard she thought about moving, her body wouldn’t obey.
Braph stood and bent over her to slip her underwear down her legs. She would never get used to the feel of the billowy knickerbockers, but she didn’t want to be without them, not now.
No. No. Stop.
He loosened his belt, the light rattle of the buckle assaulting Llew’s ears, filling her whole being with dread. Her face grew hot. She wanted to run. At the very least, she wanted to squeeze her thighs together, but her own body betrayed her, lying helplessly relaxed, as though waiting patiently.
Sweat shimmered on Braph’s forehead. Llew knew he was doing something to her, but that knowledge did nothing to help her fight it.
“Touch me and one of us is going to get hurt.” So, he’d opted to allow her speech. She’d make him regret it. “Traditionally, it’s not me.”
“I’ll be gentle.” His lips twitched and his eyes squinted briefly. In that moment he looked so much like Jonas that Llew had to turn her head, swallowing down the lump in her throat. Damn it. She felt so weak. She stared at the dark, bare timber wall, studied the knots in a couple of the planks, noticed
how similarly shaped they were, and wondered if they came from the same tree. Likely so.
Braph pushed his trousers to the floor, the leather creaking and rasping over hairy legs, and again the belt buckle squeaked, metal-on-metal.
“If you’re smart, you won’t touch me at all.”
The planks that made up the wall were so straight. Llew didn’t think she’d seen wood cut quite so perfectly. She wished Braph had pictures on the wall. She would study his metal cogs right now, if he’d seen fit to decorate her walls. But evidently he didn’t trust her with such potential weapons.
She felt the bed tip as he clambered on hands and knees and slid her legs either side. She imagined herself grabbing a cog off the wall and slashing at him with it, maybe slicing his throat; that should do the job, though it would be messy. She could handle a little blood . . . But the wall was empty, and her body limp.
“Whatever you think you had with my mother, I’m not her.”
“Shh, love.” He leaned over her so she had little option but to look at him, and he brushed a hair from her temple.
She was struck, yet again, by how similar his eyes were to Jonas’. Don’t think it, don’t think it. But it was too late; Jonas’ face swirled before her mind’s eye even as her insides constricted in an impotent effort to withdraw from Braph. She squeezed her eyes tight against reality and forced the imaginings down, staring at blackness. “Fuck you.”
He laughed, a hand brushing her still covered breast as he reached further down.
“You’re a dead man.”
He shushed her again, his face taking on a dreamy quality as his fingers parted treasonous moist skin.
Llew couldn’t stay there. She couldn’t be in that reality. She closed her eyes again, screaming silently in an effort to block out the sounds of his pleasure. His face pressed beside her ear reminded her briefly of the time, just north of Cheer, when Jonas had sobbed into her shoulder. No! She pushed the memory aside, instead recalling images of tussock, trees, anything innocuous. His beard had barely broken his skin, and dug into hers. She remembered a hand running over a jaw in Benton . . . Stop it! The singing of a bellbird, the cheep of a fantail. The slap, slap of flax blades . . . Or was that the sound of his thighs on hers? Shut up, shut up, shut up!
A moan. But it wasn’t from Braph, it was feminine. Llew’s eyes shot open. If she could have clapped her hands over her mouth, she would have. A moan of animal pleasure had escaped her lips!
Braph’s head no longer pressed against hers: he looked down at her, a pleased smile lighting his face. That didn’t look anything like Jonas.
She hadn’t liked it! It didn’t matter what her body felt. She hadn’t liked it! Stupid body. Stupid power. Stupid. Stupid.
He withdrew, rolled from her, off the bed. She snapped her eyes shut again. To see him like that would make it all too real. She would not look upon this man’s flesh. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
He didn’t speak as he slid his trousers back up his legs.
She opened one eye a little.
He was drenched in sweat, and she still couldn’t lift a finger. No. She could lift a finger, for her pinky waggled, drawing a smile from him. But it was all, and she felt exhausted. And disgusting, feeling him dripping from her.
He cleared his throat, gave her a nod and left. The door clicked shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Click.
A woman entered the room, helped Llew from the bed, and led her to the wash-room. Llew could now walk, but her mind was once again groggy, something for which, this time, she was grateful. She felt bruised, and sick, and dirty, and, and . . . she didn’t know what else. Numb.
The woman had already filled the copper tub with steaming water. She unbuttoned Llew’s dress and helped her into the water, then sponged her gingerly across the shoulders and down the arms. The slightest downward slide sent a violent shiver through Llew, and the woman abandoned her efforts, dropping the sponge into the water and taking a seat on the wicker stool by the wall, leaving Llew to take care of herself.
Llew sat in the water, unmoving and unthinking. Water dripped from the drenched tips of her hair. It was as long as it had been that evening in Cheer, the night she’d killed a man. She needed to trim it. Damn hair. It didn’t take much to look feminine again, and that only led to trouble. Stupid hair.
The house filled with the baby’s wail again, so ghostly, yet so real and chilling. Still she didn’t move, just sat staring into the water, seeing nothing. Thinking nothing.
The wailing continued.
The woman stood, hovering over Llew for a moment hesitantly, then left, pulling the door closed behind her. Closed, but not locked.
Llew’s eyes burned, tears filling them and overflowing, dropping into the bathwater. She made no sound. Her shoulders bounced with her silent sobs.
She noticed the chill of the water first, and then that her mind was clear of its fog; she could move her limbs of her own accord. And she was alone.
Her head came up. She was alone. Her head was clear. Her body was under her control.
She stepped from the bath, shook out the towel from the floor and pressed it to her face, chest, a shoulder. And then she began to rub, to scrub herself dry. Not just dry. She wanted to wash him from her, but he was still there, clinging to her, his breath warming her ear, his groans filling her head. Her own moan echoed too, startling her. She viciously scrubbed at her ear with the towel. She’d rub it off if she had to.
She stood and gripped the edge of the bath, fighting against the sobs racking her body. Anger flooded through her and she kicked the tub, stubbing her toe. Stupid. Stupid, she chastised herself while she squeezed the throbbing toe in bunched fingers, trying to squeeze out the pain. She cursed herself for allowing him to paralyse her with so much hurt and then to exacerbate it by injuring herself – not that a stubbed toe would stop her. The simple fact was that her head was clear of fog, her muscles were hers to control, and she was alone, unsupervised. What in the empire of hell was she still doing there?
She dumped the towel and pulled the dress over her head, suppressing the revulsion. It was the dress she’d been wearing and likely one her mother had worn too. If she got out of here, she would never wear a dress again. She pulled on the knickerbockers the woman had brought to the wash-room. Llew would gladly have worn five layers of the ugly, scratchy, frilly things, if she thought it would offer her some protection.
She opened the door slightly and peered around the door frame, checking the hallway. The house still rang with the baby’s wail and it sent a shiver through Llew again. She’d never seen children in the house and couldn’t imagine Braph as a father. In many ways it was less disturbing to think the villa haunted. But still . . . That noise . . .
The short hallway between the wash-room and her room was empty. She pulled the door half-open and stepped through.
The rhythmic chug of hidden machines provided the chilly wails with background percussion. Braph was in his room, evidently so focused on his task he couldn’t spare anything to keep Llew under a haze.
She stopped at the top of the stairs. Peering into the dimly-lit main hallway below, she considered her chances of escape. The door was just there: down a few steps, along the hallway, and past doors behind which were all the other members of the household. It was very likely locked. But when would a better chance present itself?
Steadying herself on the banister, she placed a foot on the top step and eased her weight on to it, half-turning as she did. Just as she thought she could relax, the step creaked. She froze, closing her eyes and listening for a change in the sounds of the house. After several tense moments, she opened her eyes and saw it.
Hanging on the wall at the top of the stairs, in amongst all the clutter Braph thought important to display but which simply got lost in the mess of his walls, was Jonas’ knife. There was no hiding that ivory-coloured handle and perfectly crafted blade in the jumble of mechanical parts; i
t appeared organic, living, by comparison with the other artefacts. It just hung there, the knife-belt hooked over a protruding piece of metal.
Llew eased her weight back to the foot not yet on the stairs and stood before the knife. She reached a hand up, stopping just shy of touching it. What was Braph thinking leaving it in plain view, unsecured? But Llew was never supposed to be alone and perhaps he sought to taunt her with the reminder of Jonas, never thinking she might be in a position to take it. But here she was, standing before it, unsupervised. Dismissing a niggling feeling that it was some sort of trap, she gingerly unhooked the belt.
A door opened and she spun round, fearing it would be Braph. But it was the woman, returning to assist Llew. Without looking up, the woman ascended the stairs.
Llew drew the knife and waited. A few steps from the top, the woman glanced up and gasped. Llew brandished the weapon.
“Keep coming. Act like nothing’s wrong. Come on.”
The woman took a last few tentative steps to draw level with Llew. She was calm in the face of the knife, perhaps confident that Llew wouldn’t use it. Well, Llew certainly would use it if the woman gave her cause. She was getting out of here, and as far as she was concerned, everyone else in this house had their own part to play in what Braph had done. Now she had the knife, their safety only extended as far as their cooperation.
“My room.” Llew gripped the woman’s shoulder, turning and pushing her toward the door at the end of the hallway. “Do you have the key?”
“No.” The woman sounded on the verge of tears.
Llew cursed silently. She couldn’t have the woman running straight to Braph before she’d had time to leave a decent distance between her and this house. But without the key she couldn’t lock the woman in.
Inside the room, Llew floundered for a moment. She didn’t have a rope or belt to tie her captive, except the belt in her hand, and she had every intention of returning all of Jonas’ possessions to him. Her eyes settled on the knife. “Except this,” Jonas had said. “Wounds inflicted on an Aenuk with this blade heal at the same rate they would on any person.” Perhaps now was the time to find out what he meant by that. It was the kinder option – certainly kinder than stabbing the woman, anyway. While Llew hated the woman for not protecting her from Braph’s behaviour, she had to accept that this woman was likely as much his victim as she was.
