Pulling the tapestry aside revealed a wooden panel with a sconce to one side. My senses revealed fingerprints, tinged with the slightest trace of blood, on the sconce. A secret door, then... How intriguing.
I opened the door and the viscous odor of blood almost overpowered me as it rushed past.
The room was dark, but I could tell from the way the sound of my footsteps echoed that it was fairly large, though not as large as the library. The place reeked of my favorite red liquid, old and freshly spilled, and from more than one person. There was a small table next to the door with an oil lamp. I lit it, although I already had an idea what to expect.
The flickering light revealed a room that was the antithesis of the rest of the house. Utilitarian and stark, stone blocks formed the walls, which were unadorned save for some wrought iron torch holders. The brutalist decor made sense when the room’s purpose was taken into account. This was clearly nothing less than a torture chamber.
It would have come as more of a shock if I hadn’t enjoyed a cannibalistic meal with her a few days prior, but I had to admit the extent of it took me off guard. The Countess was not a dabbler, she had some professional grade equipment in here and I could tell that all of it had been used, frequently. There was a table with sturdy looking arm and leg restraints, its wooden surface was saturated with blood, staining it a deep brown. There was all manner of racks, cages, blades, and spikes. I noticed that, despite the macabre nature of items on display, everything was neatly organized and stored in its own place with care. A woman’s touch.
I wasn’t frightened or outraged, of course. Just impressed. I didn’t, even then, really want to hurt people for pleasure. Torture isn’t my bag. I like to keep my murder restricted to the crass or annoying. It wasn’t a hard and fast rule, though, and if the Countess wanted to experiment, it was none of my concern. I spent some time playing with some of the toys, imagining what their purposes might be. I’d have to get a guided tour later when the Countess returned, but it was fun to speculate. I found myself drawn to the center of the room where some chains and shackles were fastened to the ceiling. They looked like a new installation, and I couldn’t imagine what they could be for. Not for restraint, I reasoned, chaining them to a wall or placing them in a cage would be far better. And why in the center of the room? The mind boggled. Fortunately, I didn’t have long to wait before I found out.
I shook my head. “Woah… You found her torture chamber? You witnessed history, man.”
“Yep. Not only that, but I participated in some crazy shit.” Joe took a big gulp of his beer.
I gestured with my own beer, spilling some on my lap. I don’t mind telling you I was getting a little sloppy by this point. “I mean, you’ve seen stuff that no one else alive has seen. It must have been amazing. Sometimes I wish I were immortal.”
Joe seemed to examine his pint glass. “It has its moments. It can get lonely at times, though. Everyone I meet dies eventually. It’s like you said, no one else alive has seen what I have.”
Even through my buzz I realized that I might have stepped over a line. I reigned it in. “Sorry, man… I never thought of it that way. I didn’t mean to sidetrack you like that. Tell me more—what happened next?”
I felt the familiar feeling of being watched, and I turned to see Andras standing in the door. He looked at me in that same impassive way he always had, showing no concern that I had found his mistress’s secret torture room. I found myself wondering what else he’d seen in this room over the years. Although he must have seen more than his share, no hint of it showed on his face. Here, I thought, was a servant’s servant.
“A meal will be served at sunset in the dining room.”
“Thank you, Andras.”
With that, he turned on his heel and was gone, leaving me to my own devices. I puttered around for another few minutes, then grew bored and went to explore other areas of the house. I found the rest of the dwelling to be normal, as opulent townhouses go, with no more secret rooms or sex dungeons. Eventually it was time for dinner, and after enjoying another decadent meal (no human meat this time), I retired to the bedroom for a dark, dreamless slumber.
I woke to two arms snaking around my chest.
“Good morning, Josef. I missed you.”
She began licking and biting my back, which was a good way to wake up. The only thing better would be… Her hands reached down and started stroking my manhood. It needed no urging, though, as it was already holding up the blankets like a tentpole. She manipulated me while teasing my back with her teeth and lips.
As she was grappling with my member, she laughed and said, “It is so big I can’t even reach around the entire thing with both of my hands.” After her keen observation, she maneuvered around to my front and started kissing it. “And my lips are stretched to their utmost length when I take you inside my mouth. Mmm…”
She kept the sounds of pleasure coming, and I had to hold back from coming. Her hair fell around my cock and balls as she slid her lips up and down. Man, she was good. I could tell she was having trouble with her mouth muscles, so I finally let him explode. The Countess didn’t gag or spit as she gulped down every bit, then licked me off for good measure.
“You are immense,” she noted.
“Yes, yes I am,” I said, trying to seem modest. I looked at her and there must have been a twinkle of mischief in my eye because she reciprocated, grinning impishly. She then seemed to become excited, sitting up in the bed as something jogged her memory.
“There is something I have to show you,” she said, placing a hand on my thigh. “Andras mentioned that you located my play room. I am glad you didn’t leave when you saw it.”
I smiled. “Well, I can’t say that I don’t have my own quirks. What would I be if I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt?”
She laughed, a musical, addictive sound. “Andras and Ficko are setting it up now in my chamber of fun.”
Chamber of fun? Could she get any cuter?
Reading her expression, I could tell that my acceptance of her sadistic tendencies was coming as a relief. Now that I thought about it, maybe the whole affair up until now seemed like some kind of vetting process. The strange assault in the alley, the human meat at dinner, the discovery of the torture chamber. It might have all been calculated to ease me into her world. The reality was that she needn’t have bothered, but I appreciated the theatricality of it all. It was a quaint diversion, watching her gradually disrobe her true nature. As for whatever it was she had to show me, I wasn’t worried about it in the slightest. I knew it would be a good, if twisted, time. I trusted her completely.
“Now, let me pleasure you,” I said as I put her body underneath mine.
It was another three hours before we emerged from her sleeping chambers. We were both fully sated, but her excitement from earlier hadn’t waned. Her manner was almost childlike, and it struck me just then that I didn’t even know her age. I was thousands of years old and she might have been twenty, maybe even younger.
She took me back to the secret room where a large copper tub had been placed in the area just below the mysterious ceiling chains. Ficko and Andras were in the process of filling it with water that had been heated in a nearby fire. In spite of my heathen nature, I had been known to bathe with many a lady over the centuries. I favored a brisk outdoor pool, ideally with a waterfall in the vicinity, but this bath also had its charms. It seemed warm and inviting.
Bathory shrugged out of her clothes, heedless of her servant’s presence. She touched the water to test it, then lowered herself into the tub.
“The water is beautiful. Come and join me.”
I stripped down and stepped inside with her. The water was perfect, any tension I might have had in my body was melted away in its warmth. The smell of sex was scrubbed away as I began to rinse myself. The tub was oversized and more than able accommodate the both of us in comfort. I was sitting with my legs outside of hers, and she, even with her legs fully extended, couldn’t
quite reach my dick with her toes. Clearly that wouldn’t do, so I relaxed a bit and got closer. She began kneading my scrotum with her toes with more care and finesse than most women had in their hands. I tilted my head back and let myself relax completely, almost dozing in the radiant warmth.
The Countess splashed me. “Don’t fall asleep. The best part is yet to come.”
She motioned to Ficko, and he came over with another bucket. With one breath, I could tell it was blood. He began to pour it in the water, and I watched as it formed a scarlet cloud as it spread out.
“Human blood,” she said, taking some of the mixture and rubbing it on her upper arm. “It nourishes my skin, gives me power.”
I considered for a moment that she could be like me, a fellow immortal. It would account for her cannibalism, her beauty, her bloodlust. I felt joy, true joy, for the first time in centuries at the thought of it. For just a second I allowed myself to think that it might be real, that I had found someone to share my life with. Then, I put those thoughts aside. No. She couldn’t have powers like mine. If she had, I’d have known. I would have been able to sense her from miles away. She was special, but a mortal like all the rest, doomed to wither and die.
I watched as the blood stained the water, enveloping her body, then began to approach me. I waited for it to touch me so that I could absorb it into my skin. When one of its tendrils finally brushed against me I felt a twinge of revulsion, small, but like nothing I’d ever experienced. Something was wrong.
Ficko was beside me, another bucket of blood in his hands. He poured it next to me, and I was absorbed by it. The revulsion increased a hundredfold. I felt sick, my head was heavy, and my skull began to pound. I felt like I was going to vomit. Another bucket was emptied into the tub and I began to hear something in my head—soft at first, but growing rapidly louder. Screaming. A chorus of tortured girls screaming in perpetual agony.
There were times I could feel the emotions of the people from whom I absorb blood, but those sensations were always fleeting and vague. This was specific, raw and powerful. I could hear individual voices, and I knew everything that was happening to them. I could see their suffering, and worse yet, I could feel it as well. Skin slowly peeled from limbs, eyeballs cut from their sockets, nipples shorn, fingers bent to the breaking point and then snapped.
But the most horrifying was feeling the shackles, the very ones I’d speculated upon, being snapped onto arms and legs. Digging brutally into wrists and ankles as they were used to hoist the bodies up to the ceiling. Then the cold, sharp line drawn across the abdomen, the feeling of the entrails as they burst free and cascaded out, watching the blood drained from the body and life flickering away. I knew every one of them now, beautiful young women, tortured, maimed and killed. And behind all of it, I could sense that same childlike curiosity, the one that had seemed so enchanting to me before, rendered monstrous through a shift in perspective.
I shot to my feet. I couldn’t imagine what the Countess must have thought, nor, in that moment, did I care. For the first time in my life, I had felt death, and it felt like it had torn my soul (if it could be said that I have a soul) apart. I stumbled out of the tub and backed away toward the door. The Countess looked at me, her expression one of confusion and hurt.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked, her voice was unsteady. “I’m sorry if this offends you.”
Even after what I had seen, it broke my heart to see her this way. To know that I was the cause made it all the worse, but I couldn’t help myself. “This blood...it came from those young girls you tortured.”
“Well...yes,” the Countess replied. Her confusion was understandable, given what we’d shared.
I wanted to explain, but I was beyond words. “I can’t do this, it’s too much.”
She didn’t know about my powers, and therefore must have believed my problem lay with the blood itself. She stood. “Wait, don’t go. I can…”
“I’m sorry. This is not right,” was all I could say as I grabbed a rag and tried to get every bit of that foul potion off of me. I gathered my clothes and retreated to the door.
I took one look back at Countess Elizabeth Bathory as I left. She stood in the tub, naked, and as beautiful as I’d ever seen her. I could see the heartbreak in her eyes as she struggled to find the words that would bring me back. I tore my eyes away and left the townhouse. I couldn’t be near her or that tortured blood ever again.
I walked aimlessly for most of the night, with no ambition save to get myself as far away from that place as I could. There were only a few times in my life where I’d felt such despair, such horror, the feeling of being utterly overwhelmed. In that moment I was like a hurt animal, reduced to a primal instinct of fight or flight, blindly fleeing what I didn’t understand. There was a part of me, even in those dark moments, that bemoaned so cruelly abandoning someone who seemed to be a kindred spirit. Elizabeth Bathory was so much like me in so many ways. Why couldn’t I stay, work things out with her? There had to be a middle ground. Yet I kept walking, head down, mind reeling.
There was a part of me, deep down, that knew why, though I wouldn’t fully understand until years later. Many more would pass before I could admit it to myself. The tainted blood hadn’t just shown me the true nature of Elizabeth Bathory, it had also shown me mine.
I finally stopped at a tavern, exhausted from my long walk. I entered and ordered a draught of ale. My hands shook as I struggled to take a sip, but they began to steady as I consumed more. I immediately ordered another.
I sensed someone approaching me from behind. I turned to see the bar maiden standing beside me, a look of concern on her face. Even through my fog of anguish, I couldn’t help but notice her earthy beauty. Wide, innocent eyes, blond curls, a round cherubic face, and a body that looked like it might have been custom ordered by Hugh Hefner himself. Shapely legs, pear-shaped hips, and round breasts that threatened to spill out of her peasant blouse. If she were born in this century she would, without a doubt, have graced the pages of Playboy magazine.
I could tell that her interest was for more than just my well being. I sensed her desire for me, and her raw display of sexuality underscored that fact. Sadly for both of us, there was no way that I could have given her what she wanted. My mind was a raging sea of screams and torture—beautiful women being mutilated and destroyed. It hadn’t abated since I’d fled from the dungeon. I could feel each new torture as though it was happening for the first time. The incessant wailing crashed like waves against the inside of my skull, almost as if it was connected directly to my nervous system somehow. It was all I could do to keep myself sane, so sex was out of the question.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” She put her hand on my shoulder and sat down next to me.
“I can break for a few moments. Father understands.”
She was close to me, well within my personal space. Her beauty was different than Elizabeth’s but no less remarkable. She was honest, natural, unvarnished and pure; just like the women whose grisly calculated deaths I was reliving in my mind. Her charms, abundant as they were, only reminded me of that horror.
“Try to relax,” she said, getting even closer. “The ale should help.”
As she spoke and touched me, I could feel my muscles relax. I exhaled, and my shaking subsided. I took a large gulp of the alcohol.
“Thank you. You are helping me.”
She put her arm around me, gazing into my eyes with a warmth I had never known. At any other time I would have acted upon her invitation and turned this into a sexual encounter. But that was a version of myself that didn’t exist at that moment, and the raw, frightened man that I was interpreted her advances in a completely different way. I don’t remember my mother, if I even had a mother... I’d never had any kind of parental guidance, I simply was. But just then I felt a shadow of that nurturing sensitivity with this barmaid as she tried to heal the pain of a complete stranger.
She seemed to
take the hint and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder as she pushed away from the bar. “I have to get back to work, but I’ll be close by if you need me. And there’s more ale, it will probably help ease your mind.”
My usual self sufficiency had left me, and I found myself fervently hoping she would return. I didn’t want to be alone.
“How about another, then?” I managed to say. “What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She went behind the bar and tapped a new keg, pouring a large pitcher of dark brew. “My name is Kathalin.”
“I am pleased to meet you. I am Josef.”
She set the pitcher down in front of me, and poured another tankard of ale. A few more tankards like it and I was well on my way to drunken oblivion, which seemed like the only escape from the screams. I didn’t think about what was coming next, what I would do. I had always been something of a free spirit, living moment to moment, but this was different. I couldn’t think of what to do with myself. One thing I did know was that I didn’t want to sleep in the barn tonight.
I got Kathalin’s attention. “Do you have a room I could stay for the night?”
“All of our rooms are taken,” she said, “but I have a place for you. My brother is out of town and his bed is available. I think Father will allow it.”
“Good. Once again, thank you.”
“When I am done for the night, I will show you the way.”
I polished off another half keg or so, getting a solid buzz while still retaining the ability to walk. The alcohol had done its work, dulling my senses so that the agony abated somewhat. I was able to make some small talk with Kathalin, and now her work was ending. Her father came out and gave me a once over.
He was a robust man, with the same curly hair as his daughter, and a bushy moustache of the same color. “Kathalin says she trusts you to sleep in Aldwin’s bed. Can I trust you?”
The Aching Darkness_A Dark Fantasy Anthology Page 25
