Chapter Text
Against all expectations, I wake up. I bite back a scream. The sting of gunpowder still fills my nostrils, the bullet is still tearing through my ribcage.
I pause, collect myself. Calm. No, the ball of lead is not still ripping through me. It's stopped now, and made itself comfortable in my shoulderblade. I can feel it there, a little round spot where my flesh strains and strains but cannot knit itself whole again.
It's the least of my worries. A little discomfort, nothing more. Nothing compared to the rest of my predicament. My aching body is pressed against cold stone, limbs spread wide. I can barely move. Pain twists around my ankles and wrists. They are bound in silver cuffs bolted straight to the wall.
Fortunately the material is far from pure, the celestial metal diluted with baser elements. It wants to scorch and sear my flesh to nothingness, but light superficial burns are the best it can achieve. A constant little ache thrumming in the background. My jaw is clenched tight, and I smother the pathetic whimpering rising in my throat.
I have to think back to stories of the saints, those primal vampires with the strength of ten men whose mere gaze was enough to bring mortals down to their knees in submission.
That would be very useful, just about now. Unfortunately, it turns out that centuries of comfortable, undisputed rule over the world have done little to help maintain such power in the modern vampire.
At least my senses still far outclass any mortal. A picture of my surroundings forms in my mind, without the need to open my eyes.
First; There is a firearm in the room. I can smell it, the powder residue from a hundred discharges. The stench of the volatile skydust is corrosive, like acid mist. I haven't fed in days, and it assaults my heightened senses.
Second; I am underground. The chamber I'm in is small, judging from the echoes. Though the wall behind me is cold and damp, I can smell no traces of mold or rats. At least it's a clean torture basement.
Third; I am not alone. The woman who shot me is there, waiting. I recognize her instantly, the beating of her heart, the scent of her sweat, the roiling of her blood. Though it is barely a whisper, I can hear her voice. She is praying.
“Praise Maia, for She is the Eye of God,
Praise Maia, for She is the Light of God,
Praise Maia, for She is the Wrath of God.”
A laugh escapes me, sharp and sudden, tinged with desperation. The prayer stops. With no more need to play at unconsciousness, I open my eyes.
The woman is sitting at a table in the centre of the room, cleaning her pistol. That barrel had been the last thing I saw before waking up here. She is looking at me, one scarred eyebrow raised.
“Find something amusing, beast?”, she asks, a wry smile on her lips.
My own face bears a desperate grin. This woman has me completely at her mercy, and I have nothing. No knowledge, no angle, nothing to fall back on.
“Well, I just woke up chained to a wall in your basement. Shouldn't I be the one praying?”, I answer.
“Feel free to do so. He won't listen, though.”, she says, mustering me with her steel-gray eyes.
I don't take her up on the offer. My eyes are fixed on the table, on the array of… things arranged atop it. I suppose that not finding out what they're for is not an option.
The huntress watches me for a few more breaths, then rises, leaving the gun on the table. When she found me, she had been wearing a thick coat and headwrap, a billowing apparition that burst into the dingy cellar of my hiding spot among smoke and flame. Without the bulky outer garment, her shape has narrowed down to a knife's edge. Her shirt clings close to her lean form, and her hair is pulled up in a bun so tight just looking at it is giving me a headache.
She steps before me, almost a head taller. Her heartbeat grows louder in my ears. Hunger surges again, and my eyes wander down to her throat of their own accord. She smells of oil and silver and gunpowder. It stings, but it not enough to quell the need rising within me. A grin appears on her lips.
“Hungry? When have you last killed, beast?”
Her voice is sharp as the rest of her, a woman honed into a blade. How long has it been for her, I wonder? I don't turn the question around, though. Instead, I look down, avoiding her gaze.
“Irene.”, I say.
She raises an eyebrow.
“My name is Irene.”
The huntress laughs.
“How polite, for a rabid animal. Let me return the courtesy.”, she says, then takes a step back and gives me a curtsy. Her taut and scarred body is unsuited to the gesture, making it look exactly the joke it is supposed to be.
“I am Nuhra en-Sarani, and I have brought you here to kill you.”, she says, with a flourish.
I know my chances of getting out of here are close to none, but hearing it laid out like this makes my stomach twist. Fuck, why did she even capture me at all?
“Go ahead, then.”, I say, trying and failing to make it sound casual.
She waits a few breaths before speaking again, as if letting the taste of my fear dissolve on her tongue.
“Three nights. In three nights, I will put a silver bullet through your head and bury you in seven graves.”
Her hand reaches for her belt and unsheathes a long, curved knife. It is a military weapon, an officer's dagger. The blade glimmers in the lamplight, coated in hateful silver. The real thing, not the watered-down version of my shackles. She rests the tip against my chin, watching the skin sizzle on contact. Her eyes widen as if to better take in my expression.
“In the meanwhile,” she says, “I want names. Names and places. You will tell me what holes your kin are hiding in, and who is sheltering them.”
There it was. Tortured and shot, just like I always wanted to go. Wonderful. I feel myself tearing up, without even needing to fake it. Nuhra just keeps staring at me with those piercing eyes, utterly unfazed. I ignore the searing sky-metal twisting against my chin when I speak.
“I suppose you're used to crying women in your basement, no?”, I say, voice trembling.
It doesn't get to her, but it was worth a try. She flashes a smile.
“No. Beasts, yes, sometimes. Bloodthirsty, soulless Archon-Spawn. Not women, though.”
She lifts the knife, and turns back to her table of horrors.
“I'm sure telling yourself that makes it easier.”, I say, with a bitter laugh.
This gets something. She pauses, for just a moment, her shoulders tensing. Odd. Clearly I'm not the first she's caught, and if she's a veteran of the wars as her blade suggests, she must have seen and done far too much to be fazed by this.
Shit, I just know there must be some way to get through, some right combination of words like a magic key. Is this the sort of thing that went through the minds of my own victims, just before I drained them?
“What do you think will happen when you die?”, she asks.
I blink at the sudden question.
“What?”
Nuhra turns back to me, wrapping a rosary of silver links around her hand.
“You're scared. A snake fat from feasting on mice suddenly in the talons of an owl. Let me reassure you.”, says Nuhra, smiling like a knife, making sure the chain is nice and tight around her fist.
“I won't try and torture the information out of you. I might hurt you, yes, but I'm not so foolish as to think whatever I get out of you that way would have any worth. I offer something more than just pain;”, she continues as she advances towards me, lifting her hand to my face. “Redemption.”
The rosary is mere inches from my lips now, the loathsome metal radiating a promise of agony. Each link in its chain is carved into the Eye of God, the solar cross that means nothing but pain and death. I swallow. Her eyes are fixed on mine.
“In three nights I will put a bullet between those lovely eyes. This body is all there is to you. No soul, no light beyond the flesh. When it lies in pieces in the ground, I wonder, will you still feel it? Will every chunk of undying meat cry out in agony as it knits itself back together around the maggots feasting within?”
She is close, almost pressed against me, only her fist and the sun-touched metal of the rosary between us.
“Repent, beast. Renounce your Demiurge and his wretched creation, tell me what I want to know. Beg for your salvation, and when I execute you for your crimes I'll make sure your death is final. Blessed Sunlight will burn your remains to peaceful, unfeeling ash in reward.”
My head presses against the wall as I try and flinch away from her. Shit, this one really has something wrong with her beyond just ordinary zealotry, hasn't she?
The metal of the rosary meets my lips in the mockery of a kiss. I let out a whimper from the pain, already starting to smell burning flesh. It bubbles out into sob after sob, and I try to push out words between them;
“I never wanted this, you know?”
Nuhra snorts as she pulls away her hand.
“Yes, I've killed, I won't deny it, but what was I supposed to do? She turned me into this, then just left me! Please, Nuhra, do I look like some ancient monster?”, I ask, letting her take in my dirty and tattered dress, the tears streaking down my face.
Curiosity sparks in her eyes. She leans close, brushing her fingers against my cheek.
“God, you really are just a pup, aren't you?”, she says, and I nod, pressing tight against her calloused palm.
“I was so damn hungry, I… I didn't know when to stop.”
She lets me sob a little more, then steps away. I look at her, begging silently. Her steel-gray eyes are unreadable. I start opening my mouth, parting my lips to-
An open palm rams against my throat, cutting off the air. The links of the rosary burn a dozen little crosses into my skin.
All the pain Nuhra has inflicted on me up until now had been of a slow kind, a low simmering. This is a sudden blaze. I cry out, the sound strangled by her grip. I can swear I hear a gasp escape her at my scream. The acid taste of silver fills my mouth, the shape of a blade. I freeze in terror.
With her free hand, Nuhra has thrust her dagger into my screaming mouth, past my fangs and pinning my tongue to the roof. It was a masterful movement, the blade never touching more than my tongue and teeth. I whimper and tense, a vain attempt to stop my trembling. The tip of the blade quivers just the tiniest bit, eager to push in and draw blood. I can smell smoke and burning flesh.
“Lie to me again, and I'll split your serpent tongue.", she snarls.
Her wild eyes follow the path of my tears.
“I know you, Irene Maleina, Countess of Nurexia. You ran like a rat when our guns brought down your palace, but not far enough.”
The point of the dagger breaks the surface of my tongue. Boiling blood fills my mouth as I whimper. My flinching only deepens the cut.
“Only you know how many deaths you must die, one for each girl you took as blood-tithe, before you have the right to speak to me of mercy.”
The dagger leaves my mouth, her hand leaves my throat. I gasp in relief and throbbing pain, and blink away my tears. There is no way out of this. The realization fills me with strange calm. No need for pretense. I spit blood, and grin.
“Do you really think I cared enough to count?”
Rage flares in her eyes, yes, but something more as well. This woman has made herself a weapon, a gun primed and loaded, and every moment she begs to be fired.
Her fist meets my face, the rosary leaving lines of searing pain across my cheek. I cannot hold back the strangled scream. Fuck, I thought I had been better prepared.
“Vicious bitch.”, I hiss.
Nuhra takes my chin in an iron grip and makes me face her. My breath hitches at the sight of those mad eyes.
“I wonder, did you stay long enough to watch your palace crumble? It was beautiful. We manned the guns day and night until it fell.”, she says in almost a whisper, her voice rapturous. Her hand brushes over my cheek, over the throbbing ruin of my skin.
“The sound is what I miss most. The sizzle of the ignition, the glorious thunder of the discharge like the voice of God. Every impact a prayer, every crater a shrine.”
Her tone is that of a lover in the throes of passion, removed from this damp little cellar, from the whole world. I hear her heart thumping, like cannonfire itself. My own heartbeat races in concert. She is close enough I can feel her breath, close enough I could lunge forward and tear her open to taste the blood rushing through her veins. Sheer terror overpowers my hunger, keeps me frozen. I swear under my breath.
“Fuck, woman, you're insane!”, I say, unable to keep the trembling from my voice.
“I wish you could see it, that look on your perfect, haughty little face. When you realize that you are no longer in control, that your world has come crashing down around you, that you are going to pay for all you have done and your liar god simply does not care.”, she says, her cheeks flushed.
Her thumb presses against the corner of my eye, still wet with tears. I watch frozen as she puts it to her lips, as her tongue darts out to taste.
“It is exquisite.”
Shit, the way she says it, the way her tongue slips between her lips… I'm so damn hungry. Every pulsing of her veins reminds me how long it has been, how I'm fucking starving. My lips part of their own accord, fangs straining to break skin. Nuhra laughs in cruel glee.
“You barely understand what I'm saying, don't you? All your titles, your palaces and churches, your tithes and worship, yet in the end, this is what you are, Countess. A base animal slavering at the sight of its next meal.”
Blood rushes to my cheeks. She is right. This woman, this upjumped peasant, this cattle, she should be begging at my feet. And I don't care. The raging shreds of pride within me are drowned out by hunger and need. All I can do is answer in a growl, and even that comes out as a low, desperate keening, an utterly pathetic sound. My limbs drag against the bonds, heedless of the shackles scraping at my skin.
“No, not getting anything useful out of you tonight anymore.”, says Nuhra, grinning.
She turns and steps towards the door, taking her gorgeous heartbeat with her. I whine and strain after it, too far gone for words in the heat of bloodlust. Nuhra looks back once before leaving the cellar entirely.
“Maybe you'll have a name for me tomorrow, beast. Think on it.”