Chapter 6 #2
“My Lady, the former Queen of Sedonia,” he said with a flourish as he pushed open the door.
The cell was darker than Glenora’s as I stepped inside, and my eyes struggled to adjust. Being on a higher floor, Glenora at least had a window, for better or for worse, and I wondered if we’d descended far enough that we were now below ground.
Only a single lantern lit the room, and I searched the shadows for Clarice.
I heard the soft scrape of shoes on stone, and a woman emerged from a corner, stepping forward sensually as if she were prowling toward a lover. The dress she wore clung to her body, and it had been ripped up the sides and down the front to reveal more of her legs and cleavage.
Clarice was tall, as I’d seen her in Axenus’s dream, but her long brown hair was gone, cropped roughly so only uneven patches of it remained on her head.
She still wore the heavy makeup I’d seen before, but it was muddled at best. Her dark lipstick was smudged down the side of her mouth, and the shadow applied around her eyes had been rubbed into wide circles so it looked like she had two black eyes.
The circles were broken in a couple places where tears had run down her face and taken some of the color with them to stripe her cheeks with dark rivulets.
“Lord Bressen,” she purred, heading straight for him. “I’ve been waiting for you. Have you come to take me up on my offer?”
She dropped to her knees in front of him and grabbed for the front of his pants to begin undoing them.
“You won’t regret this,” she said, her voice eager. “You can use me however you want. I promise I’ll make you happy.”
Bressen made a noise of disgust and grabbed her hands to stop them from clawing at his pants. He pushed her away and stepped back.
“Have you seen enough?” he asked me.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the woman. “What happened to her hair?” I asked no one in particular.
“She cut it,” Hettie answered.
My attention jerked to Hettie. “She did that to herself? With what?”
“With a pair of scissors,” Hettie said.
“Where did she get scissors?”
“We gave them to her. The inmates are all under a compulsion not to hurt themselves, so when she said she wanted to cut her hair, we gave her a pair of scissors.”
I blinked. “And her makeup? The rips in her dress?”
“Her own doing as well,” Hettie said.
“Are you sure about that?” Bressen asked, anger in his voice. “None of the guards have been taking Clarice up on her ‘offers?’”
Effram and Hettie looked at each other, suddenly not so certain.
“I…I don’t believe so, my lord,” Hettie answered after a moment.
“Find out for sure,” he told her coldly, “and if you discover anyone who’s been abusing their authority, let me know immediately.”
“Yes, my lord,” both Hettie and Effram said together.
Clarice’s shriek brought our attention back to her as she retreated across the room to her corner.
“Keep them away!” she screamed, cowering back. “Keep them away!”
There was a faint red glow on her skin I assumed was an indication of a lie at first, but then I realized the entire room had taken on a gentle red glow from the hundreds of demoni eyes that now peered from the walls.
Their faces and heads emerged slowly from the stone as they drifted toward Clarice.
I let out a scream of my own when something closed around my ankle, and I looked down to find demoni emerging from the floor as well.
One small creature had grabbed my ankle over my skirt to pull itself from the stone, and it now sat on top of my shoe, holding onto me as if it meant to hitch a ride while I walked.
“Go away!” Clarice screamed. “Make them go away!”
She shrunk back into the corner as far as she could while the demoni closed in, reaching for her. She kicked out at one that got too close, but it grabbed her foot and began to scurry up her leg. She shrieked again, and Bressen stepped forward.
“Enough!” he said, and all the demoni froze in place.
I hadn’t realized how loud their shuffling and shifting had grown until they all stopped moving and the cell once again became dead silent.
I also hadn’t realized just how eager I’d been to see what the creatures would do to Clarice until Bressen stopped them.
“Out. All of you,” Bressen said. “Go play somewhere else.”
A noise that almost resembled a collective groan of disappointment sounded as the shuffling resumed, and the demoni melted back into the walls and floor. Their eyes flickered out to leave the room once again in the glow of the sole lantern on the wall.
A persistent pressure on the top of my foot caught my attention, and I looked down to find the little demoni from before, one of the smallest I’d seen, still sitting there. It blinked up at me, and I was surprised to see one of its eyes blink about half a second after the other.
“That one seems to have taken a liking to you, my lady,” Effram said.
My answer was replaced by a squeal of surprise as the demoni scrambled up my leg and then up the side of my torso before it perched itself on my shoulder. I shivered from the feel of its little claws catching on my clothes and digging into my skin as it climbed.
“Cyra, are you alright?” Bressen asked me as he stepped forward.
“I…yes, I think so,” I said, keeping my body still. I was afraid to startle the thing or accidentally knock it off my shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it would try to claw me, either to stay on or in retaliation.
“Leave,” Bressen said, glaring at the demoni on my shoulder.
A look of surprise crossed his face as the creature must’ve blinked its uneven blink at him. The demoni didn’t move, though.
“I said go. Now,” Bressen told it in a voice he reserved for when he wanted to intimidate someone.
I shivered again as the creature only wrapped its hand in my hair in a show of defiance.
“Fascinating,” Hettie breathed as she watched.
Bressen stepped forward, possibly intending to pull the demoni off me, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“It’s fine,” I said. “It can stay for now.”
“No, it can’t,” Bressen said. “It needs to remember who its master is.”
“If you’ll forgive me for saying so, my lord,” Hettie said carefully, “I’m not sure this one considers you its master anymore.”
A moment of stunned silence passed between us before Bressen’s eyes flashed red.
“The three hells I’m not!” he said. He took another step, but I stepped back this time.
“Please,” I said to him. “Just let it stay.” I wasn’t sure why I was making an exception for this creature when the demoni as a whole unnerved me so much, but something about its odd asynchronous blink seemed almost…endearing.
Bressen’s jaw clenched tightly as he looked at me.
“It’s time to go,” he said finally, and this time my shiver had nothing to do with the demoni clinging to my hair.
Everything about Bressen’s tone and the way he looked told me he’d hit the limit of his patience.
There was a glint in his eye that said he planned to fuck me hard when we got home, but far from frightening me, I went slick between my legs.
The demoni shifted on my shoulder.
“Yes, let’s go,” I said, and I turned to leave the cell.
Bressen, Hettie, and Effram followed me out into the hall, and Effram relocked Clarice’s cell behind him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to show your lady the gargoyle wing before you leave, my lord?” Effram asked.
“Gargoyle wing?” I asked in surprise, and Bressen glared at Effram.
“We’re leaving,” Bressen said, and even Effram pulled back at the venom in his voice.
We returned to the main hall in silence, the little demoni riding on my shoulder the whole time. When we reached the front atrium, Bressen turned again to Effram and Hettie.
“We need to reinforce the wards on the prison,” he told them.
“The woman who broke through them last time is a syphon, and she can get through them again. We’ll have to put extra protections in place in case she returns.
I’ll check in with the Priory to see who they have for warders, and then I’ll be back tomorrow.
I know they have at least one. In the meantime, Cyra will put up an extra layer before we leave. ”
He looked at me expectantly.
“The wards I put up won’t be very powerful,” I said to Effram and Hettie. “They’ll break down quickly under a powerful attack, but they’ll at least give you advanced warning so you’ll have a little time to prepare.” I turned to Bressen. “Who should have access to get through them?”
“For now, just me and Hettie,” he said. He looked at her. “You’ll need to let everyone else in and out of Cyra’s wards. It’s not ideal, but we can’t take the chance of anyone or anything else getting out.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“Most of Revenmyer’s inmates are human or demi-human,” Bressen explained, “but there are some exceptions.”
“We’ll await your return,” Hettie said to him. She turned her attention to the little creature on my shoulder. “Shoo. It’s time for you to go.”
The demoni hesitated a moment, then launched itself off my shoulder toward the wall where it was absorbed into the stone in a swirl of smoke.
Bressen’s arm stole around my waist, and he pulled me against him. His breath tickled my ear as he whispered against it. “Put up the wards and draw us a portal home please,” he said. “We have some things we need to…discuss.”