The Deviant of the Dar Ages

Chapter VI: Loyalty Is A Fickle Thing

Drool trickled slowly down the sorceress's bare chest and glistened in the candlelight as she looked down to survey the damage.

Anna's once-flawless exotic figure was marred by angry red stripes criss-crossing all over her body. Some were only superficial, but others had bitten through her flesh and left her skin visibly uneven. Her toes were still firmly curled up, because unfurling them meant renewing the burn on her caned soles. The only part of her left unmarked were her loins. If Richard was keeping her around as an enslaved sorceress, it at least gave her some small assurance that she would not be violated in any way. Assuming he could control his lust for the sake of retaining her usefulness... The flock of redheads abandoned in his closet did not give her much faith.

Where did she go from here? Well, not here precisely, as it was clear she wasn't getting out of these bonds unassisted, but what did she do now with the cards she'd been dealt? Richard believed his victory complete—and indeed, his superiority complex would be in overload now with a sorceress under his command—but whether intended or dumb luck, she wasn't entirely down for the count quite yet. Sure, she was compelled to obey every command he gave her, but as long as he didn't give a command it appeared she was free to act as she wished. Of course, she couldn't magic her way out of here, or blast him senseless, or burn his mansion to the ground as she'd intended, or in fact use magic for anything useful at all... Alright, maybe those were major disadvantages. Not to mention any plan, however ingenious, would be unveiled if he simply decided to take another swig of her blood. Damn vampires... They had to have a weakness. Something she could exploit without magic. Or personal confrontation. But what?

Returning with dual flails in his hands, Richard entered the dungeon cell and smiled as he saw Anna's suspended form.

"All ready for round two, I see," he said menacingly. Anna's eyebrows bunched up, confused, but she understood the moment she looked down at her body. Her flawless exotic figure was back, her marred flesh having healed in the space of a few minutes. Her mouth dropped open in surprise, amazed and greatly relieved, until she registered what Richard was holding. Now she realised her new-found ability to heal swiftly was something he'd banked on and had every intention of exploiting.

Each flail consisted of a long spiked chain with a small weight on the end. They were unmistakably instruments of torture, not of war. They would not swing with enough momentum to cause damage to an armoured opponent, but to a naked woman bound and splayed... Even with vastly accelerated healing, the pain would be excruciating, even life-threatening.

Richard swung his tools deftly around in wide arcs as his eyes delighted in her fearful expression.

"Please..." she pleaded before he cut her off.

"Be silent, witch."

Though she continued to move her lips to beg, no sound escaped Anna's mouth. Once more she'd been rendered mute—and this time she didn't even have a gag to bite down on. As the flails swung closer and closer her hands instinctively jerked up in defence, only to be reminded of the inescapable straps fusing her arms together behind her. She was a spectator to her own body, forced to watch as savage torture was inflicted upon her helpless form.

Anna closed her eyes and waited for the first strike.

It never came. A soft clinking prompted her to open her eyes, and Anna gasped in wonder. Another woman stood in the doorway, her pale hand wrapped around the spiked chain where she'd caught it in mid-air. She wore featureless leather chaps that conformed to her shapely thighs, her crotch concealed only by a pair of russet linens. Her chest was clad in a sleeveless blouse, pulled tighter by the glossy lacquered corset hugging her slim waist. They were curves that Anna recognised immediately, even before her eyes reached the newcomer's face. She know only one woman who possessed such an enviably voluptuous figure: her informant, Fira.

Somehow Fira had found her way into the depths of Richard's dungeons. Why? How? Anna was bewildered, but still Richard's edict kept her vocals stiffly silenced.

"The one who got away," smirked Richard without turning around. "I knew you'd be back after I heard your lies through this one's blood memories."

Fira smiled dangerously. A trickle of blood now dripped from the hand clenched around Richard's flail, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Count Nosfarius Griscard. For innumerable crimes committed against the people of Lumina and the rest of humanity at large, prepare to face justice."

Her elegant face contorting with rage, she yanked the weapon from his hands and lunged at her foe, hands flying for his neck.

Anna thought she had him for sure, but then Richard—or should she say Griscard now?—spun around with astounding speed and deflected her attack. This began a fierce brawl between them, each combatant moving at a blur as Anna watched helplessly from the sidelines. Fira moved as he did—twirling and ducking with inhuman grace, her punches as loud as the crack of thunder as Griscard parried and blocked each strike. She must be a vampire too—was that the lie he mentioned? Anna doubted there was any way she could have known—these creatures seemed adept at fooling humans into dropping their guard. But if they were both evil creatures of the night, why were they fighting each other?

There was a pause in the skirmish as they reached a stalemate, inches from each other's face. They were evenly matched: the Count had superior strength, but even impeded by a corset Fira outmanoeuvred him at every turn. Both had the endurance to keep fighting for a long time yet.

Griscard snarled at her, his face distorting into the beast Anna knew so well. Fira growled back, her own eyes glowing the distinctive blood-red of a vampire. Her fangs were smaller and more slender, but no less sharp. With a sudden jerk she rammed her head into his and went limp to slip out of his grasp. Taking advantage of his momentary daze, she rose up and attacked from above. A moment later she had his head held firmly between her thighs as he struggled in earnest to dislodge her.

Catching Anna's silent gaze, Griscard snapped, "Attack her, witch!"

Roused from inaction, Anna reluctantly muttered some feeble words under her breath, sending a harmless blast of water at Fira. She might be compelled to obey his will, but she had no desire to disadvantage her only ticket out of here.

The water did have the effect of making Fira's chokehold slippery, however, allowing the Count to escape after struggling for a few more seconds. Anna cursed under her breath. Griscard threw the soaking vampiress to the floor and mustered a taunting smile.

"Did you truly believe I would allow a slave to best me?"

Fira landed in a crouch and quickly evaluated the situation. She was back to where she started except without the element of surprise. She couldn't take them both single-handedly. Annabeth was a wild card, but likely to do more damage than good in her current state. And soon the brutish lackey she'd detained in the corridor would rejoin the fight, pitting her against two angry vamps and an enthralled sorceress. Those were not odds she was willing to take.

As much as she hated the idea, she had no choice but to fall back. Revenge could wait. With a final sympathetic glance in Anna's direction, she fled from the room and into the darkness of the dungeons she knew so well. Griscard followed her to the doorway just in time to see her disappear out of sight. Ripper was slumped against the wall, snoring softly.

"A fine help you were, you fat lump."

He kicked the unconscious vampire awake and sped off in the direction of his escaped assailant. Ripper peeked into the cell to check that Anna was still fully bound, then shrugged and went back to standing guard.

The next few minutes passed in total silence. Anna was tortured with suspense—had Fira been discovered? Had she fled the mansion, or was she lingering somewhere in the shadows? Would she return to rescue her? Why should she?

After what seemed like hours, Anna's questions were finally answered. A hand grabbed her mouth from behind and she flinched before she realised it was not the beefy hands of Ripper or the rough hands of Griscard, but the smooth elegant hands of Fira. Anna's eyes had never left the doorway, but she hadn't seen anyone enter. Could a vampire really move that far in the time it took her to blink?

"What's a luscious tanned body like yours doing in a dark gloomy place like this? You should be out enjoying the sun," murmured Fira in a soft, playful tone. Her breath tickled Anna's bare shoulder, sending goosebumps across the girl's naked flesh. Becoming more serious, she whispered, "I'm sorry about this, Annabeth, but I've got to ensure you won't fight at the Count's beck and call." Then she pinched the sorceress's nose and sunk her fangs deep into her neck. This time Anna really did scream, though no sound escaped Fira's cupped hand.

It was the second time that night Anna's blood had been nearly drained, and this was no less awful than the first. She fought for air, her struggles growing more feeble as she felt her body becoming weaker and weaker. That was not the only change her body underwent, however. As Fira sucked her precious life-force away, Griscard's tainted blood went with it. This was a bitter-sweet victory: the aches and cramps in her bound muscles returned in full force, but the sensation reunited her mind with her body in a satisfyingly intimate way: it was as though she'd been detached from the world, unconcerned by her fate, and now she was once again anchored to it. The world could be a cruel place, she knew, and her current entanglement was testament to that—but she'd much rather live in it than float outside it. The pain she currently felt was almost debilitating, but it told her that she was alive. It told her that her plight was deeply wrong, that she needed to escape. Most importantly, it told her that she was mortal: one day her work would be complete, and she would be granted eternal peace. But that day was a long way off yet. It was time to serve justice, and she was no longer alone in that verdict.

"You're free now," whispered Fira. "Just remember who it was that freed you."

With that she removed her hand and slipped out of the cell as silently as she'd entered.

***

Fira remembered perfectly the day she died. It was one of the many curses of vampirism, having flawless retention. Flawless memory, sight, hearing, agility, pain tolerance, even immortality: it was ironic how many of these perceived boons turned to torment as time passed.

Well, to call it day would imply the sun was up, while in reality the sun was nowhere to be seen. She'd been in a dungeon, one as deep and dark and demented as the fire pits of hell. At least, that was how her human eyes had perceived it. Her vampiric eyes saw straight through the darkness and embraced dementia.

She understood why he'd done it. Why her sire had drained all those people of life and kidnapped those girls to be his unwilling sex slaves. It was boredom, pure and simple. He was a superior being in an inferior world. When all else failed to amuse, he'd become morbidly curious in pushing boundaries of everything considered sane and natural. How far could he go? How perverted could he become? How extensively could he tamper with the natural order of life before the world itself folded inwards?

Of course, despite all the evil he'd wrought, the world kept on spinning. It became just another game to him, seeing what he could get away with. The men and women whose futures he'd stolen meant nothing to him. The grief he struck into the hearts of those left behind meant even less. Grief like her own, for the sister she'd once had before he'd twisted her into another one of his immortal slaves. Fira was a young vampire by the measure of his existence, but she'd vowed to end herself should the day ever come when she begins to follow the trail he'd blazed.

It had seemed so important to her at first that she understood his motives. She'd spent months just researching his true name, for he'd gone by many over the centuries. William, Henry, James, Walter, Robert, Richard... Always a name that would garner little attention from locals at the time. But an ancient burial scroll rotting in the ruins of a haunted fortress had held the answer: Count Nosfarius Griscard, circa 508-554 AD. Presumed dead at age 46, though of course no corpse was ever found. His name was likely derived from the old Slavic word meaning the insufferable one, but Fira had a hard time believing any parents would name their child such except perhaps as a joke. And if he truly had been a count, it meant he at least had experience with ruling over people. No surprises there.

Her search for reason had ultimately led nowhere, however. She'd found out everything possible about the so-called Count, but nothing explained his drive to kill more innocents than the Black Death. Then, for whatever reason, he'd decided to settle down outside Lumina and narrow his target demographic to young female redheads. Fira knew all too well his reasons for exclusively selecting females—it was not for their gentler spirit—but the hair colour had seemed rather arbitrary until... "The power to quench darkness will be granted only to the virtuous women with hair as red as the blood they spare."

The origin of the prophesy was unknown to Fira, but it explained the troupe of redheads in Griscard's wardrobe. It also explained the warm buzzing sensation she'd experienced once in her throat, for she too matched the criteria. Why her power had never materialised was a mystery to her—perhaps vampires were not virtuous enough, whatever that meant.

The only remaining question was how he'd come to be so utterly devoid of compassion. But after all she'd read about his many crimes, she no longer cared. His crimes were irredeemable. Perhaps an omnipotent divine being could have the mercy to forgive, but she did not. So she'd begun planning her revenge. Not only for herself, but for her sister.

Sara, once so pure of heart, had been corrupted into the shell of a human. Fira had died by her hand, at last granted release from the chains of slavery—for a fleeting moment. Griscard had brought her back as an accursed creature of the night and caged her so securely it had taken several hours to escape even after she'd forcibly acquired the keys. As a newborn vampire she'd been stretched out in a cage so constrictive it was as though it was shaped to her curves—which wouldn't surprise her after spending all those long painful hours locked in an infernal iron maiden, reshaping her modest figure into an eroticised caricature of a woman that fulfilled her captor's dark fantasies. Then he'd commanded Sara, her own sister, to torture her with a red-hot poker through the bars of the cage. That was the first time she'd experienced the curse of vampiric healing. All of the pain without the escape of mortality.

She'd only escaped when Sara had snuck her some of her blood, giving Fira the strength to dislocate her own arm and manoeuvre into a position from which she could grab Griscard's turned back.

Fira reflected on all these things as she lay in wait in the darkness, gaining renewed resolve from her reflections. There were one, maybe two vampires presently searching for her. Vampires were born hunters: it was only a matter of time before the rustle of a vine gave her position away. But she was banking on just that. In fact, all she needed to do was slip past them and slink back to the sorceress currently racked with silent agony as she hung exposed in chains. She didn't think much of her chances without magic on her side—getting Annabeth onboard was imperative. Even as a vampire, the other girl's power scared Fira, and she knew the sorceress could just as well turn her vengeance towards her, but it was a risk she had to take.

Muted footsteps piqued her sensitive hearing and her head snapped towards the source. It was the Count, but he hadn't seen her yet. She cautiously backed deeper into the crawlspace, her feet feeling for the loose brick that granted entrance to a secret passage. She'd been held prisoner in these dungeons for many months, and though she'd been kept securely under lock and key for most of that duration, there had been times she'd done some harmless exploring. Like any archaic mansion, Gormwall Manor was home to more hidden passages than there were roads in Lumina, and she was proud to have discovered a great number of them. Whether they were secret was anyone's guess, but Fira had never seen him crawling through a false wall.

She soon left the stalking Count behind as the passage led back into the heart of the dungeons. The cell where Annabeth was chained was one of the largest and most well-equipped for restraining a woman in any way Griscard chose. Fira had foul memories of that room and the horrors it had held for her and Sara. Now there was another girl trapped there, and Fira was in a position to help her. Would the cycle of injustice finally be broken?

Fira emerged into the candle-lit cell and straightened up, acutely aware of the hulking guard standing watch outside the door. Annabeth was stretched out before her, chains clinking softly as she swayed in her bondage. She was ungagged, but Fira understood that thralls were bound to their master's commands more tightly than any physical restraint. Her own mind had never been enslaved—a mistake Griscard would pay for dearly—but she'd discovered the power of vampiric seduction on her own after kissing an admirer with a shade too much fervour. A vampire's fangs were all too eager to draw blood, she'd found.

Still, she wasn't taking any chances. Fira grabbed the sorceress' mouth from behind, whispering what she hoped were soothing words of comfort. She also pinched her nose, completely silencing the girl, before sinking her fangs into the soft flesh they ached to devour. Fira had never tried this before, but she could smell the other vampire's foul scent in the girl's blood, as revolting in flavour as Annabeth's was sweet, and was confident she could suck it out without killing her. Hopefully.

But blood was blood, and it had been too long since she'd had a good feed. The sweet nectar of life gushed down her throat as Fira closed her eyes in bliss. An endless stream of images flashed through her mind, the girl's whole life contained within them—yet somehow Fira had time to process every frame, every thought, and every memory. The sorceress was not as young as she appeared, that much was clear. While still mortal, she'd been fighting the good fight for many years and had more than just battle scars to prove it. Her magic fascinated Fira, for she already understood the joy of wielding a power few others could match, and this was several orders of magnitude beyond that. A power far more wondrous than even her own vampiric abilities. Yet the price seemed so dear—abstaining from all carnal pleasures was a tall order for a girl of Annabeth's beauty and physique. Fira knew now why her own power had never manifested—she'd explored all those pleasures shortly after receiving immortality. Men were never so desirable as when they were frozen in terror.

It was several long seconds before she regained her own senses and remembered whose neck she occupied. Hastily, she pulled away from the weakened sorceress and backed off before her bloodlust got the better of her.

"You're free now," Fira whispered, fervently hoping Annabeth wasn't too weak to take advantage of that freedom. With a final admonishment she left the same way she'd entered, doubling-back to make a frontal approach on the cell. The tables were turned now—this time, she would reign victorious. She had to.