31. April 15, 2023
Cherry
When she awoke, the room she was in was dark. Where the hell was she? She turned her head, but her vision was too blurry to see more than torches burning and that the walls surrounding her were covered in pictures. What exactly those pictures were, she couldn’t tell.
The air surrounding her was hot and heavy.
There was a dampness that pervaded the space, along with the heat and an odd scent in the air.
Not moldy or musty, but more brackish. Like wet earth or a marsh, and it was mixed with brimstone.
Light, but still unpleasant, so she moved to cover her nose with her hand.
That slight movement drew her attention to her body.
It hurt. Not like she’d been beaten, but more dull, like she was hungover.
Laying her hands flat next to her body, she struggled to push herself to a sitting position.
It was no use. Her body quickly gave out, and she slipped back into unconsciousness .
The next time she woke, she knew some time had passed.
An hour, maybe? The torches were still burning, but they were less bright.
There was no sound except for the soft crackling of the flames, and the room had a hollowness to it as if she was entirely alone.
It was time to force herself to move. Wherever she was, it wasn’t a place to stick around.
Blood flow to her extremities was vital if she was going to get out of here, and that was only going to come with movement.
Laying her hands flat at her sides, she gingerly pushed herself to a sitting position. Looking down, she saw she was atop a stone slab in the center of an open, square room. Other than where she lay and the torches, there was nothing in the open space.
She sat for a moment to take stock of her body and collect herself.
To compound the pain, she struggled to put thoughts together coherently, like there was a fog suppressing her ability to remember clearly how she might have gotten here.
As she sat there, staring at the wall in front of her, slowly, bits and pieces came back to her through the brain fog.
She’d been in Zion’s office, and he’d revealed he knew who she and Demon were.
That they had friends along. That they were pursuing the Salieri, which he was a part of, as well as connected to her father’s disappearance when she was a child, Waters’ sister’s murder and his torture, Flame’s capture, and the near bombing that could have killed her and Gem. He’d been watching them all along.
The reveal of his knowledge led to Matthew cornering her, drugging her, and then bringing her here.
But where was here? How long had she been gone?
Midas had TB watching the villa, but did the men know she was missing yet?
Somehow, she doubted that Matthew had taken her out the front door to wherever she was now.
It was possible they thought she was back in her room, tucked tightly into bed, and awaited Demon’s return from the reconnaissance they’d gone on tonight.
Attempting to escape wherever she was when she was so groggy and physically weak was foolish, so she’d wait.
Allow her body to regain some strength, investigate her surroundings, and then make a plan.
While she knew the men would eventually figure out she was missing and engage her tracker to find her, she didn’t know how long she’d been gone or how soon they’d realize.
She’d need to try and help herself in the meantime.
The slab she sat upon was perhaps waist-high for the average person, so there was little difficulty in sliding off it to stand on the floor.
She rubbed her wrists and shook out her arms, as well as did some gentle twisting at her waist, bending of her knees, and turning of her ankles to make sure she was at full strength.
Walking down the two steps that led up to the slab, she crossed to the torches spread out about every six feet so that she was closer to the walls to see what was painted on them.
The walls depicted several frescoes of women from what looked like the time of the Ancient Greeks.
They appeared to be everything from fully dressed to naked, yet artfully posed.
Some were preparing food, others were dipping cloths into basins with liquid in them, and there was even a young woman being washed and prepared by other young women.
There was also a scene of a naked man, a sheet draped around his portly figure, his face round and bearded.
Several more young women, all naked, were depicted as serving him food and drink, one even appearing to gaze upon him flirtatiously as she knelt at his feet.
Behind her, several satyrs played their flutes, danced, and leered at the young maiden.
When the pictures turned the corner, it was to a wall with an open, arched doorway in the middle of it.
Burned-down candles dripped wax onto the two votives that sat on carved stone shelves on either side at shoulder height.
They appeared to be hands, the thumb and first two fingers extended up, the third and fourth folded down.
It was difficult to see it in complete detail, but within the votive, there was a male figure carved as sitting in the palm, holding items in his upraised hands.
A knife and a snake. At the base of the votive, a woman and child were carved.
She turned to look at the wall to the right of the doorway. The paintings resumed, this time showing a young woman, her smile almost beatific, her belly round with child, and she was being dressed and cossetted by an older woman while young male servants offered her wine, fruits, and gifts of gold.
The paintings were in excellent condition, but although they were artistically beautiful, she felt a menace behind them. She shivered despite the heat. Something here was very, very wrong.
Grabbing one of the torches off the wall, she stood before the arched doorway, looking at the unfamiliar symbols and glyphs carved into the stone.
With a deep breath in and a long, measured exhale, she walked through the archway.
She emerged from a hallway less than three feet long only to find herself in another room, this one much smaller than the one she’d been in.
She quickly realized what had seemed wrong in the previous room. There appeared to be no obvious access to enter or exit whatever building she was in. How in the name of all the saints had she gotten in here if there was no way to enter or exit?
The contents of this room were both similar and different from where she’d woken.
Here, there were alcoves in one wall where ancient-looking objects—urns, small chests, statues—resided.
However, the items appeared to be in pristine condition, the ones with metal shining in the torchlight, and the urns and chests capable of opening and closing on their contents freely with no danger of damage being done to them.
There was also another raised slab in the room, only this one was in the center of the space and was reached by descending four steps into a sunken circle.
Almost as if an audience would stand around to watch what occurred there.
She shivered again, grabbing her biceps and chafing them.
Whatever they watched, she didn’t think it was anything good.
Circling the pit, she walked closer to the walls to examine what was painted on the remaining three walls of this room, and it didn’t take long before the shiver she’d experienced a few moments ago turned into a full-body vibration.
The paintings depicted naked figures in a wide variety of sexual positions.
There were men lying on beds, their cocks hard and standing straight up in the air, drawn with great exaggeration to depict them as close to two to three times the length of a normal man.
In some images, multiple men were attending to a single woman, or she was stretched to her maximum height and width while bound to various surfaces.
And in the background, more men lounged in chairs or leaned indolently against walls, watching as women impaled themselves upon the men in a variety of positions, their faces meant to display the height of ecstasy.
Cherry looked upon them and felt as if they were wide-eyed with fear and pain rather than pleasure.
They were meant to be erotic, but they had the opposite effect on Cherry.
“Terrifying, aren’t they?”
The voice came from the arched doorway. Felix Giudici stood in the arch, the torches placing his face in alternating shadow and light.
The flames bouncing off his white hair and sharp features combined with the flickering shadows accentuated his height and gauntness, reminding her of classic horror movie star Bela Lugosi—the icon of monsters.
The irony was not lost on her. He was a Salieri. He was a monster.
She stared into his eyes, refusing to show the fear that had her insides turning to jelly.
This wasn’t the first time she’d been in a dangerous situation, but it was certainly the first time she truly believed there might be no hope of escape.
She wondered if this was how Sarah and Waters had felt while being tortured four years ago.
Her stomach bottomed out. It would be a fitting end, she thought, for her to end as Sarah had.
Fitting punishment for her inadvertent crimes.
“Terrifying and yet erotic, all the same.” Giudici answered his own question. Entering the room, he stood directly across the sunken circle from her.
“Where am I?”
“You’re on ancestral land.”
“You don’t exactly look like a native of the island.”