Angus screamed in rage and launched an off-balance punch into my right side. I could only move ever so slightly, and winced, hearing the crack of one of my ribs. He was not done, and soon my left side was equally in pain. “That is for your insolence,” he said, breathing heavily.
He could torture me all he wanted, and even kill me if he could, but I was not going to give him the pleasure of crying out in pain. But even I could not take the full brunt of an enraged werewolf the size of Angus for very long. Was there a reason for his kidnapping me other than simple torture, or did he have a more nefarious plan?
“You have a funny way of welcoming people into your family,” I said, breathing through my rib pain. “You might want to skip this part of your Blackheart family initiation with Jova, because either he will be dead, or you will be eating spiders again.”
That last comment earned me a punch in the stomach that would have dropped me to my knees but for those damned chains, but it was worth it. “Jova has nothing to fear from me,” Angus said coldly. “His powers will serve my empire well. He has brought celebrity and fame to my house, and one of his progeny, my grandchild, will take over the mantle of the Bogeyman one day. Half werewolf, all bogeyman is a combination my enemies cannot overcome.”
“I have given you heirs as well,” I pointed out. “And I will take care of your daughter. I . . . I love her.”
The next punch went straight to my groin, and I nearly vomited, blinking back tears from my eyes. “Like you loved that tavern wench?” Angus replied. His fists flew to my face, his punches blackening my eyes.
Damn those small towns! Right, there was that little indiscretion, but Angus was a man, surely he would understand. “I can explain that,” I said, not really knowing what I could say to get Angus to stop his beating. But he stepped back of his own accord, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I would like to see you try and explain that to my daughter,” Angus said. “But it doesn’t really matter. I knew about that tryst the moment it happened, but I needed you to marry my daughter and legitimize those children. I cannot have any daughter of mine with a bastard litter. Do you know what that would do to my reputation? But now that you are married, and my grandchildren are here—neither I nor my daughter need you anymore.”
“Your daughter and I are going to work things out,” I said. “I am a changed man. Those little girls of mine need their father, and their father they shall have!”
Angus grinned evilly. “Poor vampire misses his babies. What a sweet and tender moment this is! It is such a shame you abandoned your wife and newborn babies and disappeared for parts unknown—oh well—such a sad story . . . But it ends happily, for the girls shall be raised by the Pack.”
There was a hum in the air as he spoke, and the curtain of energy formed over his shoulder, and I tried to peer through my swollen eyes at the figure coming through the crystal. “She is not going to believe I just left, and neither will Jova and Cornelia,” I said, craning my neck to see who it was that had joined the torture session.
“Believe it?” said the Howler, taking her father’s side and looking remarkably well recovered from how I last saw her. “It was my idea. Perception is reality, Sirius, and everyone knows you run from commitment. It is a perfect plan, the last piece being put into place when Garlic imprinted on the girls. It is so cute how she doesn’t leave their side. She certainly won’t be coming to look for you.”
“But why? You begged me to marry you. For the girls, you said.”
She snorted in derision. “The girls will be fine. I will see to that,” she said. “I needed you to marry me to save Father’s reputation and my inheritance. If I had birthed my girls while unmarried, Father would have disowned me from the sheer embarrassment of the whole ordeal.”
“True.” Angus nodded. “I probably would have.” He patted her sweetly on the arm. “You were quite the soldier getting through that ceremony,” he said. “I am so proud of you!”
“Listen,” I said, “I don’t want to break up your special father-daughter bonding moment, but seriously, didn’t we have something back on Saona Island? Didn’t you feel the passion?”
“Of course I felt something, you imbecile,” she said. “I was in heat—not in love. I never loved you. I just needed you right there, right then, on the island. If Big Belly Bart had come one day earlier, he would have done the trick. And I needed you to marry me, and you did, and now, Sirius Sinister—we are through.” She feigned like she was about to cry, putting her hand to her face and scrunching it up. “It is now time to go practice weeping for my husband, who has deserted me with all of those newborn children. I feel so alone.” She turned on her heels, kissed her father on the cheek, smiled that ever-so-evil Blackheart smile, and departed back through the curtain.
“Breaking up is so hard to do,” Angus said. “I think she took you leaving her quite well, don’t you?”
“I will break these chains eventually,” I said. “You can’t hold me here forever.”
Angus laughed. “Actually, I can,” he said. “We are on the Isle of Man, in a private dungeon I had built especially for you. We are two hundred paces below Peel Castle, so no one is ever going to hear your pathetic, whimpering cries.” He walked over and picked up a link of the golden chains. “I am surprised you do not recognize these little beauties,” he said. “But, I guess it has been a century or so since your little visit to Immortal Divorce Court.”
That explained why they had transported me by boat, since nothing ensorcelled with magic from the IDC could pass through a crystal. It also was the reason that I could not break the chains, and for the first time in my life, I felt utterly defeated. No immortal could break these chains. Peel Castle would become my tomb because, at some point, I would starve to death.
Angus must have been reading my thoughts. “Don’t worry, Sinister, my friend at Immortal Divorce Court says they have improved the chains, so now, not only can’t you escape, but the chains will also keep you alive, sustaining your body, and eliminating your need to eat, drink, and even sleep. You will be alone in your thoughts forever and ever. And the last thing you will hear, other than your own screams of insanity, is my voice telling you that you will never, ever, ever, see your daughters or the outside world again.”
He stepped through the crystal and was gone, and his henchmen packed up the crystal shields and locked the door. All I could hear was the steady drip, drip, drip of unseen water that mirrored the drip, drip, drip of my tears.
I do not know if I had been in my private hell—real this time—for an hour, a day, a week, or even a year, when I heard footsteps approaching from afar. They were light and soft, which effectively ruled out the lumbering gaits of Harvis or Oliver. My heart lightened. Had Jova come to rescue me? A blue light flashed outside the door to the dungeon, and the door slowly opened to reveal a hooded, shadowy figure.
Stepping forward into the dim light emitted by the chains was simple Heather, who smiled at me ever so vacuously. She wrung her hands nervously. “Sirius,” she whispered, “what has happened to you? I thought I would never find you!”
My heart had sunk at her appearance, but I realized quickly that, even though she could not shatter the chains that bound me, she could certainly return to the village and get the help of Oliver or Jova. But, I wondered, how did this simpleton get here in the first place? “Heather,” I said. “How did you find me? Did you stow away on the boat that brought me here? And how did you open that door? What was the blue light out there?”
But helping me was not what Heather had in mind. “So many questions, they are hurting my poor wittle brain. I am here now, and that is all that matters. I like you all chained up like this, Sirius,” she said, moving close to me and nipping my ear none too gently with her teeth. “I can do whatever I want to you.”
I had to get her one-track mind focused on something else—like saving me from an eternity of misery! �
��Sweet, sweet Heather,” I cooed, trying to catch her eye. “Later! Later, you can do anything you want to me,” I pleaded. “But first you must return to the village and find Jova or Oliver and bring them here to me.”
“Is that the kind of party you want?” she asked, thinking about it for a moment. “Hmm, tempting, but that is a no. I don’t want you and friends, I just want you. And I don’t want to wait. You don’t need anybody else—because lucky you has me!” She bent over in front of me and ground her backside hard into my manhood, but did not get the reaction she was hoping for. “What’s wrong?” she said—her voice turning all cross. “Don’t you like me anymore? Maybe I should just leave you here to rot if you don’t want me!”
“No, no, please don’t go!” I exclaimed as she backed up to the entrance of the dungeon. “Please stay, I want you, I want you so much I can’t stand it, but . . . but . . . It’s these chains. They are hurting my arms and legs so much I can’t feel a thing!”
“Oh,” she said, happy again, bounding over like some kind of crazy lovesick puppy. “Why didn’t you say so?” She pulled my breeches to the ground. “Does that feel better?”
I grimaced. “Yes, quite, thank you, so very nice of you to do that,” I replied. I had to get her to go get someone that could actually rescue me! “Heather, get some help for me, and I promise we will be together again, and it will be so amazing!”
“You promise?” she said, her mouth hovering near my hesitant manhood, looking up at me with those big wet eyes that I realized radiated pure madness. How had I not noticed that before? She removed her blouse, and then I remembered. She put her face so close to mine she was practically breathing into my mouth, but it was dank, fetid air. I did not find it remotely erotic as her once warm brown eyes were turning cold and white as a winter night, and the set of her jaw was positively carnivorous. “Promise?” she repeated.
“Yes, yes, I promise,” I said, seeing with dismay all traces of color vanish from her eyes. Heather was not the simpleton she appeared to be, and instead of a “who,” she was probably going to turn out to be a “what.” If only I had listened to Oliver!
“Well,” she said, her voice low and rough. “I don’t believe you. And if I can’t have you, then no one can.” She took a silver knife from her belt and held it high in the air, and her pale white skin grew even paler, until the only traces of color on her entire body were the blood-red of her nipples and lips. She pulled out the comb from her hair and shook her mane from side to side, and in the process it became as white as new fallen snow. She advanced on me, and her free hand shot out and captured my manhood roughly in its grasp. Her fingernails dug into me like five little jagged icicles, and were it not for the enchanted chains, I would have fainted mercifully away. But mercy was not on sweet Heather’s agenda.
“You thought me stupid?” she sneered. “Thought you could just have me, and then run down to the chapel and marry another?”
“No,” I replied weakly.
“No,” Heather repeated. “But that is what you did, and no man who rejects the Winter Witch gets to remain a man.” She muttered a few incantations, and I yanked on the chains with all my strength but only succeeded in sending twin streams of blood down my forearms, which the Winter Witch promptly licked away. “Mmm, I love the vintage that is vampire,” she said. “Always so darn tasty. It must be that you guys are so absurdly high in iron, and you know us girls are always losing blood now and again. Oh, how ironic, because you are the one that is going to be losing a whole lot of blood from the place where your cock used to be!”
She assessed my manhood once again and raised her blade high in the air. “It is going to be a shame to destroy something so beautiful, and useful,” she said. “At least I was the last one to have it.” Down came the knife, and I closed my eyes and braced for incomprehensible, unimaginable pain . . . but felt nothing. The Winter Witch screamed in surprise, and my eyes snapped open, taking in the joyous fact that I was still whole for now.
“What magic is this?” she screamed, releasing me from her hold. “It is not possible. No immortal can best my Dagger of Despair—least of all a weak-minded vampire like you.” She tried again and again, and to her utter chagrin, she was unable to inflict any harm on my apparently enchanted member. Once the shock of her attempts wore off and I knew she could not harm me, a rather satisfied smirk came over my face. Persephone, I thought, it had to be—one of the only creatures on this fair world, or Underworld, with powers that made this vile creature pale in comparison. Pun intended.
The Winter Witch stood to the side and, without warning, jabbed her Dagger of Despair successfully into my bare ass cheek, which was not apparently protected by the enchantment of Persephone, and I stifled a cry as the blade burned and then turned cold. “If I can’t take your pride, I will leave you with a lesson,” the Winter Witch said, grabbing her blouse and walking away. “I am leaving you with a hundred-year-old boil, and combined with the power of those lovely IDC chains, it should keep you company for about one thousand years or so. Have a nice life, Sirius Sinister.” The door slammed shut behind her, and the wound on my backside began to heal instantly, forming into a nasty pus-filled boil that spit pus down my legs and, in between spitting fits, proceeded to berate me in seven different languages. But all things considered, I was much happier with a talking boil on my ass than being turned into a gelding by the Winter Witch.
I cursed out the boil, the Winter Witch, the Howler, and Angus Blackheart, using every curse word I knew in every language I knew, even inventing a few new ones along the way. Not to be outdone, the boil kept up with me, cursing my life, my courage, my intelligence, and yes, even the very posterior on which it resided. I soon grew tired of the game. “Boil,” I said, gritting my teeth and wrinkling up my nose at the growing and rather stinking yellow pile of pus at my feet. “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up?”
“No, you shut up!” said the boil. “You think I asked to be stuck to the ass of an ass like you?”
I sighed—it was going to be a long one thousand years if this continued. But somehow my encounter with the Winter Witch had oddly raised my spirits. There was nothing like keeping your manhood intact in a situation where there seemed to be no hope at all. I had new resolve to get myself out of these chains and find a way to see my daughters. There just had to be a way to free myself or get help!
Not being hungry or thirsty or having the ability to see outside was playing havoc with my sense of time. For all I knew one hundred years had passed outside my prison walls while I had traded insults with the boil. Then my ears detected faint footsteps growing closer and closer, and my heart leaped because they were far too heavy to be those of the Winter Witch or the Howler, but heavy enough to be those of Oliver or Harvis, or so I hoped. The dungeon door crashed open, momentarily silencing my babbling boil. A large figure appeared at the door, brandishing what I hoped was a weapon that could free me from this infernal prison. Into the light stepped a familiar face, wielding not a weapon, but a sheaf of papers embossed with an iridescent wax seal.
“Sirius Sinister, by the power vested in me by . . . ewww . . . how revolting,” stammered Buttercup the faerie, jumping back and scraping his boot on the floor to remove a well-aimed spit of pus. “Now that is just nasty!”
“You are the nasty one, you stupid faerie,” said the boil. “Come a little closer, and I will get one in your eye.”
Buttercup looked to his papers, then at me and, shrugging his shoulders, looked back at his papers. “Sirius,” he said. “That is you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Buttercup, it is,” I replied. “I guess you are here to serve me. I should have known I would be seeing you rather soon.”
“Between the total absence of breeches, and not getting peed on by your little white dog, for a minute there I thought the IDC had got one wrong,” said Buttercup.
“But that doesn’t happen, does it,” I said. “Well, sorry ab
out the boil.”
“I’m not sorry!” announced the boil.
“Not a problem,” said Buttercup. “And yes, I am here to serve you.”
“Serve this!” shouted the boil, spitting in Buttercup’s direction and succeeding in getting the faerie’s other boot blemished with pus.
Buttercup wiped his boot on the floor. “At least it can’t move as fast as that dog of yours,” he said, looking around the dungeon for Garlic. “Where is she anyway? In spite of the pee thing, she was a cute little puppy.”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “But I guess even you haven’t served a man chained to a secret dungeon’s walls, with his breeches at his ankles, and cursed with a talking boil on his ass.”
“Talking boils are funny!” opined the boil, spitting pus happily.
“You know I don’t have time for a story since I am on court time,” Buttercup said. “And not to disappoint you, my friend, but this doesn’t rate as even in the top one hundred of my weirdest service assignments.”
“You said ass,” howled the boil. “It takes one to know one!”
Buttercup thought for a moment. “Well, maybe it is in the top one hundred, because that boil is brutal. Oh well, back to the matter at hand.” He held out the sheaf of papers and stood a safe distance from the boil. “By the powers vested in me by the Immortal Divorce Court, you are hereby served.”
I watched nonplussed as a rainbow shot from the wax seal and struck my money pouch on the floor, magically lightening it by ten gold coins. “After the time I’ve had lately, I couldn’t care less about the gold!” I exclaimed. “Did I just say that about the service fee?”
“You did,” Buttercup stated. “Did you actually marry the woman serving you this time?”
“Yes,” I said. “This time I actually did marry her. We had a big church ceremony and everything. What was I going to do? She was pregnant with four of my babies!”
“So the children are really yours this time?” Buttercup queried. “Actual children, you know, babies, not just some old curmudgeon clinging to his life by a mortal thread?”
My Ex-Wife Said Go to Hell Page 22
