Chapter 21 | Garroway #2
They charge as one, unwilling to listen to a woman dictate anything to them.
Vallan steps in their way like a stone wall. He moves unnaturally fast, crouching and then rising up as the two clumsily wave their clubs at the vampire.
The left one gets an elbow in his ear that spurts blood out the other ear, thoroughly rattling his brain. He goes down in a heap, but not before the man on the right gets punched in the gut so hard his back distends.
Gasping for breath, eyes bloodshot, he begins to fall forward—
Only for Vallan Stellos to grab his face with an open palm and shove the man’s skull into the wooden wall, with such force that the wood cracks, breaks, and puts the man’s head in a hole.
A woman screams from the room Vallan put his head into, bloodied face lolling, neck twisted, skull shattered. If he hadn’t been dying before, the red splatter on the walls tells me he is now.
Sephania doesn’t shed a tear. Although intense violence was not the first thing we wanted to do, we are here to gather answers.
She kicks in the door the two men were guarding.
A fat naked man rolls off a woman in the bed. The two other nude, skinny girls at his bedside shriek as we enter the room and slam the door behind us. Vallan pulls up a chair to bar the door handle.
Perevis lifts his flabby arms, surrendering immediately. His little clit-cock shrivels below his gut, balls practically sucking up into his stomach from the sheer fear on his sweaty face. “G-Garroway! What is the meaning of—”
“Do you know these two men?” Sephania interrupts, thrusting the paper in his face.
He looks. Shakes his head. Squints. I can tell he’s already made up his answer before getting a good look at the faces Keffa so painstakingly drew. “No. Who the hell are you?”
“The Hellwhore. Garroway says you’re important.”
I lift a finger, wagging it. “I said he knows people, lass. And self-important, maybe.”
Pelvis sputters, his three chins wobbling. Behind him, the trio of girls huddle together, trembling.
“If this is about the redcloud mishap, Garro,” he begins, “I swear a better shipment is coming in. T-T-Tomorrow. You didn’t want that street-mist anyway! It’ll make you sick—”
“I just told you what this is about,” Sephania says. She shakes the paper in his face, drawing his attention. “Look at me, not Garroway. Listen to me.”
Frustration edges her tone. As the gambling lord gulps, Seph’s eyes flicker to the girls behind him. She flares her nostrils, something like hatred in her eyes. It’s not hatred for these poor nightladies—one of whom looks far too young to be caught in a house of ill repute.
Seph goes to them, shoving Perevis aside.
Hard knocks come at the door, which Vallan stands near with his arms crossed. “Sir! You in there? There’s vampires running wild in—”
“I know, you fucking dolt, they’re in here!” Perevis screeches. “Break the damn door down!”
Sephania’s voice softens as the girls shake in front of her. She lifts the paper. “How about you three? Recognize either face? They’re slavers.”
They share scared looks. In this moment, Sephania looks like a harbinger of death. They just want to go home—wherever home is—if they even have one. Their lives were not meant to be tossed away by garish scum like Perevis of the Gilded Guild.
“Well?” Seph asks. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
The smallest and youngest girl quickly nods. “Man on the left? He sold me.”
“When?”
“Three months back. I got a better gig here, anywho.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Used to be holed up in the southwest, ma’am. That one ugly brothel with the rooster crowing on the gable? Something about cocks—”
“I know the one,” Seph interjects. “He still operate out of there?”
“Maybe? Dunno, ma’am. Been months.”
Seph nods. “Thank you.”
“There!” Perevis squeals. “You got what you came for. Will you fuck off—”
“Silence,” Sephania growls. She raises a palm, not bothering to look at the jiggling merchant. To the nightladies, she asks, “Are you here of your own volition?”
“What’s ‘at mean?” the tallest girl asks.
“Do you want to be here?”
The skinny woman laughs. “No one wants to be here, Hellwhore. If you’re asking if we mean to be here, we do. Well, I do at least.”
“I don’t,” says the third girl, the one Perevis rolled off on the bed. She glowers at Perevis behind Seph. “Fat sack of shit keeps me locked up in here more days than not. Says he’s gonna breed me ‘cuz I’m so pretty. Can’t wait to jump out that window and get my pretty ass out of here.”
Sephania blinks at her. From my profile angle, I can see the cogs working in her mind. When she turns to Perevis, he backpedals, paling at the sight of her darkened face. He holds his hands up. “Wait now, girl. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t you know how much coin I—”
Sephania’s sword is in her hand before he can finish. When he says the word coin, she lunges and spears him directly in the gut. Perevis screams, coughs blood from his lips. He grabs the blade of the sword, whining—
Sephania pulls back, slicing off two fingers before stabbing him again. Then a third time. Finally, a forth, once he’s on his knees, putting the sword through the slumlord’s neck. His eyes widen and she kicks his chest to slide his corpse off her blade.
This time, none of the girls screech. They simply watch with dead eyes.
“He was a good meal ticket,” says the youngest one.
“For you, maybe,” says the slave who’d been locked up.
The door cracks, wood splintering.
“Well? Exit out the window?” I ask.
From the door, Vallan says, “No need,” and draws his massive war-axe from his back.
Sephania, now covered in blood across her boots, turns to the girls. “When we leave, you three are free to go. If you need a safe place to stay, head southeast, underground, to the Grimsons. Find a man named Antones and tell him I sent you.”
“Thank you, Hellwhore,” one of them says. “We won’t forget this.”
“Then make sure no one else does, either. Tell everyone you can: Flesh-trading is dead in Nuhav. The Bitch-Queen has come to finish the job the Bronzes refuse to do.”
The door bursts open. Five men start to swarm in, gaping at the sight of the dead merchant at Sephania’s feet.
The first man gets Vallan’s axe in the chest, the wound so cavernous it nearly severs his body in half lengthwise, from shoulder to crotch.
A shower of blood sprays back on the other four, and they scream and turn to run.
Sephania rushes forward, grabs one of the fleeing men by his tunic, and pulls him to her. She snarls in his face, “Looks like the Gilded Guild needs a new lord. If I were you, I’d disband. Tell your friends.”
The man sputters, mouth opening and closing—
And Sephania lets him go, growls in frustration, and impales him through the chest in a wickedly fast advance. “I’ll find someone else,” she informs the shocked, dying man.
I furrow my brow as we leave the gambling den unimpeded, everyone downstairs parting the seas after we left a string of dead bodies in our wake.
“Why’d you kill that last sap?” I ask once we’re outside, on our way to the carriage.
“Didn’t like the way he leered at me,” Sephania answers in a dreary voice. “Stared at my tits too long.”