“And what would you want in return?” She eyed the three idiots through slitted eyes.
“Take us with you,” Beau replied.
“I don’t think so.” Not in a million years. “Where would you go?”
“To your home,” Beau said.
The castle in Pennsylvania? Oh, no, no, no!
“Back to wherever you vangels live,” Patience elaborated, as if Regina hadn’t understood what she meant.
Good Lord! I’ll be in enough trouble as it is, assuming I’m able to get Zebulan out of here, let alone bring three lackwit demon witches with me. But Regina was no fool. She could use their help. “Sure,” she lied.
“We’ll take you ta him, but y’all kin only see him fer a moment. Can’t risk gettin’ caught until we have a plan fer a mass exodus,” Beau said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
Yeah, but Moses had God on his side when he led the Exodus. I don’t even have St. Michael watching my back.
Soon, she was walking stealthily through a narrow corridor below the ground that led to a huge cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites abounded. The floors and walls reeked of ancient dirt. There was a wooden rack and torture implements sitting on battered cuttingboard-like tables. A massive Lucipire snored loudly in a reclining leather chair. And against one wall was chained a naked man, lying on a low pallet.
She gasped at his condition.
It was Zebulan, in humanoid form, but unlike the man she had seen in the past. His face was bruised black and blue and yellow with swollen lips and eyes. Patches of hair had been torn from his head. Flaps of skin hung here and there on his emaciated body. His fingertips and toes were bloody and without nails. There was a barbed wire wrapped around his penis.
Suddenly his eyes opened and connected with hers.
“Oh shit!” he muttered. “It’s Satan’s sister.”
“Think again, lackwit. I am Regina, the answer to your prayers.”
The Lucipire guard snuffled in his sleep. Regina couldn’t risk waking him, or killing him, and thus alerting others who might come to relieve him, until she was sure of her exit route. She backed up and rushed away, but she would be back, as soon as possible.
As she sought her three witch cohorts, she mused on what she had seen. There was always much talk about man’s inhumanity to man. It was nothing compared to the devil’s inhumanity, she decided.
More than ever, Regina was committed to saving Zebulan.
Even if he did consider her Satan’s sister.
Chapter 3
What’s your worst nightmare? . . .
It was like an old-time movie reel playing over and over in his head, and on the walls of the cave, and on the ceiling. Even on the dirt floor. No escape. And it was driving Zeb crazy. No, not crazy. Madness might be a relief, actually. Anything but this continual amping up of his emotions to the point of either crushing shame or a raw yearning for what he would never have again, then slam-bang back to the reality of his cave prison. A brief respite. Then a repeat. Amp up, slam back, pause. Amp up, slam back, pause. Amp up, slam back, pause. Again. Again. And again.
Welcome to Hell on earth. Personalized torture. Only the most wicked mind could think of this type of torment.
Zeb had never considered himself invincible, but after a year of agonizing physical torture, he’d deluded himself into thinking he might just be able to withstand all that Jasper threw his way.
He was wrong.
Once Satan entered the picture, the game changed. The essence of evil understood that, for some men, the worst torture involved the head, or the heart. Emotional zapping of the very soul, over and over and over. Pictures of the love he had had, and lost. Pictures of what he had done to gain riches, and how he had paid a price beyond measure.
If only he had been satisfied with his small vineyard in the Shomron valley which fulfilled the needs of his small family and half a dozen workers!
If only he had stayed at home and never bartered his fighting skills with the Roman Army in exchange for coin to purchase more land!
If only he had not returned to the wasting fortress city of Masada!
If only he had not killed, even indirectly, his sweet Sarah and precious twins Mikah and Rachel!
If only he hadn’t taken his own life before he had a chance to repent, assuming he would have come to his senses, eventually!
Days ago, Zeb had been released from the rack. That should have been his first clue that the game had changed. He still had iron cuffs about his raw and bleeding wrists and ankles, but the chains linking him to the walls were long enough that he could lie on the filthy mattress.
He fought sleep, though, because every time he closed his eyes he saw a replay of his sorry human life. And not just the horrible end where he witnessed the dead bodies of his wife and children, and his role in their fate, but the early, happier days when they all lived together on the small plot of rich soil passed down through his family for generations of vintners, a property which had never been enough for his greedy ambitions. Of course, this agonizing replay of his human life was visible all around him, not just in sleep, like 360 degrees of HD television screens.
To make things more unbearable, Craven was always around as witness to Zeb’s visual life. Like a peeping tom of the worst sort. Craven had once been a servant of the Marquis de Sade. Enough said!
Jasper joined Craven on occasion. Dumb and Dumber. Mean and Meaner. They would sit about in demonoid form in special recliners designed to accommodate their tails watching his life as if it were a fucking soap opera. They even ate popcorn and slurped on red slushies made with the blood of the latest human harvest.
Their running commentaries added fuel to Zeb’s burning emotional torture. As intended, no doubt.
“Look at them titties,” Craven said when Zeb was seen making love to his wife.
Slurp, slurp, crunch, crunch.
“I’d like a taste of that honey bush,” Jasper added.
Slurp, slurp, crunch, crunch.
“Ah, look at the little kiddies, master.” Craven was watching Zeb’s children as they played tag among the grapevines. “Wish we had sweet morsels like that here at the castle. Wouldn’t I love to prick some young skin!”
“Children are innocent. We want no innocents here, fool,” Jasper replied.
Slurp, slurp, crunch, crunch.
Lucipires killed evil, irredeemable humans to increase their ranks, but they also preyed on those sinners who might have repented if given a chance to live to their natural deaths.
“I know that!” Craven said. “I’m just saying.”
On the next screen was a view of Masada, and Jasper remarked, “I do like a hellish fire. Wish I had been there.”
Craven nodded. “I do love the smell of burning bodies!”
After starving out the Jewish rebels at Masada, the Roman soldiers had set the bodies afire. That’s when Zeb had arrived, just back from the Saxon lands where he’d been posted for the past two years, just in time to clean up “the mess.”
Zeb screamed silently, and madness swirled and teased at his brain. Then abated. No such relief.
Please, God, if you are there for such a wretched soul as me, Zeb prayed, help me.
He got his answer that night when he was alone with only Craven, who slept in his recliner, snoring and snorting in his deep sleep, popping out noxious gases from his nether end. It was not the answer he’d expected, or wanted.
Standing in the doorway that led into the tunnel connecting the cave to the castle above was a woman wearing a black tunic belted over tight black pants tucked into black boots. Really tight black pants. Numerous knives of various sizes were tucked into special sheaths in her belt, and she held one in each of her hands. A long black cloak, also fitted with weapons, was shoved back off her shoulders. Her hair was red, and her skin smooth as cream. She looked just like . . .
“Oh shit!” he muttered. “It’s Satan’s sister.”
“Think again, lackwit. I am Regina, the an
swer to your prayers.”
Craven shifted in his recliner and appeared to be waking, but then he fell back asleep. When Zeb glanced back to the doorway, the woman was gone.
Had he imagined her?
The Lone Ranger and the Three Musketeers, all rolled into one . . .
“Ah doan understand,” Beau said after they left Horror’s cave torture chamber, known as “The Pit,” and were locked in a broom closet, all four of them! “How is watching movies torture? Ah love goin’ ta the movies. Better yet, playin’ videos on mah own TV. Ah have . . . had . . . a collection of DVDs that reached mah ceiling. After a day of trappin’ down the bayou, ain’t nothin’ like a good ol’ Die Hard flick while snackin’ on some sweet tea and pork rinds.”
He flashed a mischievous grin at them all, which made Regina wonder if Beau didn’t put on an act as a dumb redneck. Even so, Regina had to remind herself that he was a young Lucie, only twenty demon years on top of his thirty human years. He would be familiar, somewhat, with modern technology, at least up to the age of DVDs.
“Fool!” Patience said. “That wasn’t movie movies. Didn’t you see that Zebulan was in those pictures?” Patience, on the other hand, had passed more than three hundred years, since the Salem witch trials, or so she’d told Regina this morning. Still, Patience had been a demon in modern times long enough to be aware of the changing world, somewhat, like Beau.
“Maybe they were home movies,” Beau persisted.
Grimelda rolled her rheumy eyes. “Lackwits, all of ye! Didn’t ye catch the scent of Satan down there? For a certainty, Satan don’t do no entertaining of his victims.”
They all nodded at that observation, including Regina.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist, or even an above-average-in-intelligence vangel witch like Regina, after a few minutes in Horror’s cave torture chamber, to figure out what all those flashing pictures meant. Satan had come up with a devious plan for driving Zeb crazy with tormenting pictures of his past life.
On that not so happy note, Regina agreed to stay in the broom closet during the day while the three demon witches went about their regular duties at the castle. They would meet together later that night to come up with a plan for Zeb’s rescue. At the least, they would take Regina back to talk with him, if possible.
And so, twenty-two and a half hours later (but who was counting?), Regina found herself being driven crazy, just like Zeb, except her tormenters were three demon witches (well, two witches and a warlock) as she stayed hidden in the infernal broom closet (ironical, huh? Brooms, witches, get it?) waiting for the opportunity to approach Zeb again. The only sounds outside her locked door were intermittent screams coming from the distance.
Regina wondered if some of those screams came from Zeb. But, no, she was too far away, here in the castle itself, to hear him in the cave.
The space was actually rather large for a utility closet, about six by ten. Who knew that so many brooms would be needed for a castle or that there were so many types? Floor, fireplace, snow, whisk, push, angled, wet/dry, cobweb chaser. The only ones missing were racing brooms. Harry Potter cornered the market on those. Ha, ha, ha. It was a sign of her diminishing sanity that she could find humor in her situation. There were even demon-tail fluffer brooms. Don’t ask.
Her three cohorts-in-madness never came to beleaguer her all together. One at a time was more than enough, believe you me. They were trying their best not to draw attention to her presence as they went about their daily routines.
Grimelda was working in the castle kitchens that day, and whew-boy did she stink of blood. Now, vangels were no different than demons in that they had built-in yearnings for blood, but the Lucipires overdid it, using blood in practically all their dishes. Not just the usual black pudding (sausage) or blodplattar (Nordic pancakes made with blood), substituting human fluids for animals. Everything had at least a dash of hemoglobin. Today, they were making meatballs and pasta with vodka sauce, heavy on the blood in the red gravy. Yuck, yuck, yuck!
“Try it. You’ll like it,” Grimelda said with a cackle, handing her a foil-wrapped meatball sandwich.
There was an overhead light in the closet which could be turned on or off with a long chain, thus allowing Regina to see the old witch clearly. She wore her usual scruffy black attire with the open-sided Viking apron, its white color splotched with red sauce (or blood). Her long gray hair was bunched up into a hair net (who knew demons were so fastidious?), and her fangs had a reddish hue today, presumably from tasting so much . . . well, you know what.
“Maybe later,” Regina said, placing the sandwich on a shelf behind her.
“’Tis only half blood, half crushed tomatoes,” Grimelda told her with a wicked gleam in her rheumy eyes.
Regina wasn’t sure what that gleam implied. Probably that there were toad hairs or eye of newt in the sauce, too. Or that the crone had crushed the tomatoes herself . . . with her very own feet, or something equally distasteful.
She did take a drink of the bottled water Grimelda had brought with her, though, making sure to limit herself to a few sips. Otherwise, she would have to find a bathroom soon.
“Another hour and you should be able to visit the prisoner,” Grimelda said abruptly as she examined a set of old-fashioned corn brooms. “I put a potion in Craven’s beer. He should be out for at least three hours.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me that to begin with?”
“I’m telling ye now.”
“Why are you doling out potions without consulting me?”
Grimelda gave her a look that pretty much said “You’re not the boss of me.”
“Do Patience and Beau know about this?”
“They do now.”
“Aaarrgh! I thought we were working together.”
Grimelda had a long-handled broom in hand and was checking its heft, angling it this way and that, as if for flying. She just shrugged at Regina’s consternation.
“I expect we will be out of Horror by tomorrow,” Grimelda said. “Where do you plan on taking us?”
Regina had originally planned to take Zeb back to the castle in Transylvania, no matter what Mike or Vikar had said. She didn’t think they would turn him away, not in his present condition. But Zeb and three demon witches? No way! First of all, she wasn’t sure she could do a tandem teletransport with another person, assuming Zeb was able to handle his end of things, which was starting to seem highly unlikely. Somehow, she would figure a way to rescue him. But a five-person jump through space defied even the remotest possibility.
“Um . . . I was thinking that I would get Zeb out of here first, then come back for you three, one at a time,” she said.
Grimelda just laughed, and it wasn’t a nice laugh. More a cackle.
“Surely, you can see that all of us leaving at once would be impossible,” Regina said.
“It’s all or none, dearling. And lest ye be thinking I’m a frail old woman that ye could overcome, jist know there are potions and there are potions.” She glanced pointedly at the water bottle that Regina still held in one hand.
“What? Did you put something in here?” She dropped the plastic bottle to the floor.
“’Course not,” Grimelda said, examining her grimy fingernails. “But it would be a shame if ye were to have a bout of bloody bowel flux whilst in this closet, now wouldn’t it?”
“You are a . . . witch!” Regina seethed, lunging for the old lady who managed to slip through the door, cackling. Outside, she could hear Grimelda talking to someone about the broom she must have carried out with her. Otherwise, Regina probably would have followed after her.
Minutes later, Patience showed up. Her mob cap was askew and her dress was rumpled. Regina didn’t dare ask what her job had been for the day. “Do not be letting Grimey bother you,” Patience advised when apprised of what she’d told Regina. “She means well.”
“By threatening me with a laxative?”
“Well, not that, but by giving Craven a potion. I tried to s
educe him away from the cave, but little good it did me,” Patience said, waving a hand to indicate her manhandled apparel. “He was good for only five minutes. Not enough time for me to lure him away. The clod!”
Regina shouldn’t have been appalled, but she was. Patience had engaged in sex with the beast, just to distract him long enough for Regina to talk to Zeb? It was more than she herself was willing to do. Probably.
“In any case, Beau will come within the hour to guide you back to the cave. You must determine whether the Hebrew is able to be moved. Not just physically moving him with all his injuries, but through space. Where will we be going, by the by? I mean, where exactly is the vangel headquarters?”
Regina wasn’t about to give up that confidential information. “Oh, there are several headquarters. I’m not sure which one we’ll go to. It’s something I’ll discuss with Zebulan.”
Patience nodded. “I cannot wait to be out of here. Three hundred and twenty-seven years since I was burned at the stake, which was naught, compared to these three hundred and twenty-seven years of being a demon.” There were tears in her eyes as she gazed at Regina.
Guilt overwhelmed Regina at the thought of leaving this woman behind, but what else could she do? Maybe she really could come back sometime later?
Yeah, and broomsticks can fly!
It was only minutes later, but seemed like hours, before Beau arrived. He had just showered and changed into the same attire as yesterday, though clean, explaining that he’d been in physical training to be a Lucipire all day long and had been stinky with sweat. “Ah smelled bad enough ta knock a dawg off a gut wagon,” he said in his usual colorful way.
“As if that’s important to me. You could smell like a toad for all I care,” she snapped. “I need to get out of here.”
“Keep in mind, chère. The best thing about us toads is we kin eat what bugs us.” He waggled his dark eyebrows at her. “C’mon. Ah’ll take you to the cave.”
“Really? Just like that, I can leave now. Um, why don’t you just point me the way, and I’ll go myself.” The sooner she was rid of these three yahoos the better.