Chapter 6 Azrael
Azrael
She was distracted today, and I knew exactly why.
This evening was the annual auction for the Church of Daylight, and while she had been here on the property, diligently working on becoming good enough to beat Havoc and I, today she was lacking.
I suppose she wasn’t lacking in the way most people would. She wasn’t missing steps or not giving everything she was to her training, but she was allowing the irritation to show.
I could see the micro-expressions behind the stone face she had put on since the second she woke up this morning.
I could see it in the way she fought, putting more anger behind her motions rather than thought.
She was far from letting it control her, but even so, allowing it to affect her was still against my rules.
I watched as she and Bishop fought across the room.
In the last month and a half, she had excelled.
She was quick, agile, fluid. She had cut the time of takedown nearly in half with Bishop, and about a quarter with Alaric.
Havoc, however, was still besting her. She was determined to beat him though, I could see it in her eyes.
“She’s angry today,” Havoc said, leaning against the wall beside me.
“More kids will be sold today,” I told him, watching as she flew over Bishop, landed on her knees in a controlled fall, and spun around on the ball of her foot, swiping her leg under his feet. “Put on display and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Those not sold will be taken to Absolution.”
“Have you found any other information on that?”
Between her studies and training, we had talked more about what had happened at the church.
She had given me a lot of information. Some useful, some less than, but I was sure that she had given me everything she knew, which was strange because when I first started this endeavor, I had made several decisions based on the fact that I wanted the information she had to provide. That’s all she had been to me; a cache.
Her laughter broke through my thoughts, her smile as sharp as mine as she held a small knife in her hand.
We had only gone through a few lessons with blades, but ever since she broke Alaric’s skin, she had been more obsessed than usual with wielding one.
The laughter was disjointed and unsettling. She was clearly still angry, her smile sharper than it usually was. In fact, Bishop even glanced my way, both of them panting.
He shouldn’t have brought a knife today. That was his mistake.
“The only thing left to do is to get her there,” I replied.
Scar cocked her head to the side, her bangs falling across her eyes, the ribbons of the bow glittering as it hit the light. She adjusted her grip on the knife as Bishop’s eyes returned quickly to her.
He wasn’t afraid, but I think he was a little nervous, which was acceptable. She was wild. Feral. She was unpredictable in her movements, and once she got a blade in her hand, it became far more difficult to stop her. In fact, she had almost sliced me a couple of times before I disarmed her.
“Have you considered how you will do that?”
I had. Many times. The problem was getting her to Absolution without losing control of the mission.
I called Red every Sunday to get updates on what was happening in the church, and while it was getting increasingly worse, the lustfulness towards the Blessed One was still talked about at length.
Nobody compared to her, to how she sucked cock.
They wondered what church she was at, why nobody had seen her, if I had killed her or not.
I wasn’t worried about what would happen to her.
If they attacked her on the way to Absolution, she could certainly handle herself.
What we couldn’t handle was her not making it all the way to wherever the building was located before that happened.
If they decided they wanted to risk touching her in the parking lot of Absolution, so be it.
She’d leave the van filled with blood before being sentenced to the prison they had created.
“I just need to find the right person to complain to,” I answered, watching as she and Bishop began a deadly dance.
Bishop was quick. He had been trained since diapers to fight, perfecting it through the years, but he had never gone up against a woman who had been trained by all four of us.
Alaric’s silent strength.
Havoc’s persistence.
Bishop’s passion.
My patience.
And all of our skills.
All wrapped up in a pretty little skirt.
“Are you going to the auction tonight?” he asked.
I had been mulling over the same question all day.
If I did, I wasn’t sure that bringing her would be the best idea.
Not because I thought she couldn’t handle it, I knew she could, but because I wasn’t sure if I was ready to allow the world to see even a hint of what I had given her.
I wanted it to be a shock when I unleashed her within the walls of the church that had tried to break her.
If I took her this evening, if they weren’t stupid, they would notice the change.
Scarlett ran for the wall, shoved off it, flew through the air, and threw the knife to distract Bishop, only to land on his back like a monkey.
She wrapped her legs around his chest and one arm around his neck, grabbing her wrist and pulling back.
Bishop grabbed her arm, turned his back to the wall, and ran backwards towards it.
I could have sworn I saw sweat on his brow. Good girl, Scar.
She grunted, but her grip didn’t waver.
He did it again.
She bared her teeth, her snarl silent.
“I have a better idea,” I decided.
Bishop snarled and slammed her back again just as I stepped forward.
Her grip only tightened, and I knew that it would take more effort from him to put her on the ground, he knew that as well, but we would all have our turn at torturing her, and she knew that.
“Scarlett.”
Her eyes shot up as she panted through her teeth.
“Let our dear friend go, I think I have something you might find far more enjoyable.”
She froze, her pupils, which had already been wide, grew so much that the hazel nearly disappeared completely.
Ah, not yet, little sinner, perhaps in an hour.
She released Bishop and straightened, her dress pulled down on one side to very near her nipple, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.
30 minutes.
“Pretty yourself up, Scarlett, I have a guest I think you should meet.”
She straightened her dress, smoothing out the fabric, pulling up the top of it, and finally checked the laces on her thick-soled black boots before finding my eyes and touching her hair.
I offered her a soft nod. “It’s just down the hall.”
Her eyes widened. “The woman?”
“The very same.” I stepped to the side and allowed her to lead the way, Bishop and Havoc joining my side.
Bishop was rubbing his throat and rolling his shoulder. “You sure that’s a good idea today?”
I had been unsure of it as I watched the obsession for her new sisters grow, but what better day to introduce them than today?
“Tend to your wounded pride, Bishop,” I hummed, following after her.
I heard Havoc chuckle behind me.
Would Scarlett truly have beat him? No. Not today.
She would have gotten tired, or Bishop would have broken one of her bones.
It was easy, snapping bones. All he had to do was slam her a little harder, just enough for her head to hit the wall, or slam his fist back into her nose, or even grab the wrist she was holding to hold it in place, and slam them both down to the ground, forcing either her wrist or hand to break.
Most every solution in a life and death hand-to-hand combat situation was to break a bone. If you knew what bone to break and when, you were free.
It was one of the many things I had omitted from her training.
Scarlett was strong, but the only bones she would be able to break with her bare hands were noses and fingers.
I wanted to focus more on areas she would thrive in before I went to scenarios that may only help every once in a great while.
It only took a few feet before the cello music from the Victorian era started drifting hauntingly through the halls.
The basement was one of my favorite places in this house. The space was lit only by fluorescent lights hung at intervals, the sounds of whimpering and moaning music to my ears.
Alaric currently had some male they knew in one of these rooms who had betrayed the Blackheart brothers. I didn’t quite know what they did, how in depth their work was, but I did know it was similar to ours.
Betrayals ended in torture and death.
Loyalty was tested every day, and if you failed, they hunted you down and gave you a fate worse than death.
If only my brothers would enact the same laws with those rogue Initiates they were still dealing with. Perhaps we would have less of them falling onto the same path as the man I was hunting.
Red had very briefly, on two occasions, updated me on our Uncle’s little hunt.
The daffodil and Jacky boy hadn’t been causing any problems recently, telling me that they were deep into their hunt for those they thought might go rogue.
The rose and her Claim were having fun in their hunt.
She had called me often to tell me about their progress.
They had killed about 20 Initiates in the last two months, and part of me wondered if they were truly threats to the empire or if the rose was just allowing her wildness to run her for a bit.
I wouldn’t blame her if that was the case.
The cub was cleaning house in the East. Still remaining close to home, but his kill log was far less than the others. Either the Initiates placed up there were truly a nonthreat, or he was allowing his softness to lead him.