Another scream tears from my throat, now out of my control, for my body, or this thing it has become, seems to no longer be mine.  Something, a foot perhaps, connects to my belly and the reactionary heave wracks me, but nothing comes up anymore, I have been effectively emptied.  A bone racking shock electrifies my side and sends my muscles into tremulous spasms, and I wonder at the calm detachment that I am taking this all in with, as if this pain that was tearing me apart were happening to someone else.   Vaguely from somewhere within my mind I realize that the blows have ceased, and exhaustively I let my body slide to the floor, grateful for a break from having to hold it up. I find that I do not care why it has stopped and I feel a ridiculous urge to laugh or cry as my body shudders erratically. 

                “The lady is here to see you” someone gruffs from that somewhere in space outside of the pain. I try to push away the tides of agony that are pulsing over my body, long enough to understand the things outside of my head, but let myself be swallowed by the overwhelming tides.  It is easier to focus on the pain in that odd detachment, so much easier to understand than the things outside of it.  

                “Can’t you even understand that, animal?” and something was taking hold of my chin, yanking my head up, flaming my neck into white hot protests and a whimper escapes my lips, again a reaction from my body that I have no control over.  I realize that he is wanting me to look at something, and I let my brain slip back long enough to focus my eyes around the swollen flesh that has encompassed them, and they begin tearing and blurring my vision even further.  But I am just able to make out a slim woman with large curly hair and a young man by her side, and even from here I could make out that he was tall and stood there with a certain grace that most men lacked.  Exhausted I let my brain slip away again and slump to the floor; the pair was vaguely familiar but I truthfully did not care whether or not they were who I thought they were.  Heels click across the concrete floor, and I sense someone is standing, now kneeling in front of me.  Soft, perfumed hands begin to trace over my face and pause at my chin.  Bringing my brain back a little, I work my throat and mouth in an effort to speak, but there is something vital missing, and instead a croak escapes, along with something warm and viscous that dribbles down my chin.  The hand withdraws suddenly and there is a soft gasp.

                “Such a mess!  Did you really have to destroy her so?”  There is some tsking as she rises and steps back, and the gruff voice growls out from my left.

                “My lady, we did as you asked, surely this is to your satisfaction?”  There is some shuffling of feet, soft murmuring that I can’t quite make out.  Again I work my throat, fighting past the viscous stuff and its then that I realize what is missing.  My tongue.  They had cut it out.  This strikes me as funny and I would have started laughing if it hadn’t hurt so much to do so.  Working around this, I fight to get out “All I want to know is why.”  But it came out more along the lines of “Ah iiiieee wah oo oh ih iiiieeeee.”  Again the hysteria begins to rise, and a high pitched giggling arises somewhere in the distance, beginning to tickle at my lips. 

                “You want to know why?”  Again she is kneeling in front of me, and takes my head roughly in her hands, making me cry out as I fall forward from the force.  My body writhes at the agony of this new position, and I fight to keep from crying out again.  I can tell she is studying my face, consuming it with her eyes, as she had been wont to do on many occasions, trying to gauge any trace of emotion that might flicker there.  Finally she pushes me away and rises, and it takes every ounce of remaining strength to keep from falling to the ground; even now I find that my body is trying to defy her. 

                “Do you remember when you came to me and accused me of being inhuman?  That I have no capacity for love?”  She pauses, as if she were hoping that there was some chance that even in this state I would rise to her bait, but I do not.  I can almost feel her annoyance that I could not respond, and I feel the corners of my mouth rise to a grin, while the giggling is rising into a mad crescendo, reminding me vaguely of jokers on playing cards and how much they used to scare me.  The heels click as she begins to retreat, then stops, as I am sure she has paused to take a final look at me.  She was always fascinated with how her victims reacted to her little witticisms.  Idiot.

 

                “Well, I just thought I would prove you right.”  Now a shrieking laughter is filling the room, and I wonder who thinks this is so damn funny.  It sends a chill down my spine, for there is something eerie about it, a cross between a howl and a child’s shriek, and I am not sure how I even came up with the thought that it was laughter until I realize that it is me.  Finally it had broken through, and I suddenly feel a fierce delight and revel in it, bathe in it, let it take my mind away and pour out of me like some tidal force until the world roars into darkness.

 

                The firelight glistens off of her auburn hair as she takes a sip from the fluted champagne glass.  Closing her eyes, she keeps the liquid in her mouth, cupping it on the top of her tongue, then lets it slide sensuously down her throat.  She smiles at the glass as she swirls the liquid slowly in the firelight; there was just something about torture that made her happy in a way that even sex never could.  Yet there was something about the sounds that the girl had made, that clenched her heart and made her grateful that her bed was so far away.  If those men had not taken the liberty of striking her then, she would have done so herself, just to stop the tingles of fear that had been sparking through her. 

Slowly she slides her gaze over the bookshelves and suits of armor until they rest on the young man standing by the window on the far side of the room.  He has been staring out that window since they had come up from the basement an hour ago.  His dark hair hangs lazily around his ears, while his unusually graceful form slumps idly against the wall.  She frowns, usually around this time of night they are in her quarters and devoting themselves to more worthy activities.  Artfully turning her frown into a pout, she rises slowly, putting her glass on the table and wandering closer to him, yet far enough out of his vision so as to entice him to look at her.  She loves seducing him, the game, reassuring herself every time that he took her that she was still desirable.  The fact that he had to please her never came up in her thoughts with him as it had with his predecessors, and she loves to believe that he truly cares for her.  

                Gracefully she slinks over to the wall to grab a pool cue, in his line of vision long enough to ensure that he was now looking at her, and then goes to the pool table where she drapes herself to aim for the pool balls.  She sneaks a glance at him for she knows how much he loves her shape, but stops when she sees that his gaze has once again returned to the window.  Annoyance flares enough to tickle her anger, but she pushes it away for now as she moves to lean against the pool table, twisting the cue slowly between her fingers. 

                “And what has your thoughts so preoccupied, my prince?” she purrs, smiling slightly at her use of words.  The silence following her words is long enough to make her uneasy, until finally he turns to her, his usually tanned face turned ashen, his sea gray eyes burning into her so intensely that it borders on wildness.  Slowly a lazy smile plays over his lips, and her heart flutters partly from fear, increasing her desire for him. 

                “My queen, there is nothing in my thoughts but you.”  She looks at him warily now as he moves toward her in that panther way, and he takes her almost roughly into his arms.  Eagerly she traces her fingers up his chest and rests her hands on his shoulders, and he lowers his face and begins to trace his lips over hers, playfully nipping, forcing her to pursue him.  She almost let herself go, but his demeanor was bothering her, and he was almost as good as she was at manipulation.  Pulling back enough so that they were each in their own spaces, she fixes on his gaze, which still unnerved her, that odd mixture of wildness and lazy seduction. 

                “This is a cause for celebration, and you are far from doing so.”

                “I thought we were heading in that general direction just now.”

                “No, you know what I mean.  Ever since we came from seeing her you have not been yourself.”  Now his confidence shudders briefly, but the speed which he quickly recovers it is to be admired. 

                “My lady, I fail to see how the murder of an innocent girl is a cause for celebration.”  Ah, so that was it.  She was certainly hoping that he was not suddenly getting cold feet.  That could hardly bode well for her future plans, which at the moment had him in them.  She sighs and proceeds to discuss things as if she felt that she was saying them to a simpleton, just for the sake of annoying him.  He was getting a bit too bold for her taste.    

                “It is a celebration because now people will no longer question my reign due to my being a woman.  Now I will be feared.”

                “Even more so because the girl was your own niece.  Your own flesh and blood that you helped to raise when she was younger and your sister was fonder of you.”  She shifts, slightly uncomfortable at the sudden shift in the conversation.  Family had never been very important to her, not since she felt that their mother had betrayed her and her twin, since then she has had to take on the world, and now people squirmed when she had built a taste for it.  That can hardly be her fault.

                “Precisely.  She was an ideal example, to show that I have no favorites and I will dispense justice as I see fit.  She had been getting too strong, even you have to acknowledge that.  She had followers for god’s sake!  That could not go unchecked.”  By now she had begun panting from the passion of those words, and her glare dared him to challenge them.  Again that lazy smile traces over his mouth, reminding her of a walk in the jungle that took you down before you even knew the predator was there.  God how she wanted him, his defiance would have killed him had he been less in her eyes.

                “My lady, naturally you are correct, they will no longer question you because you are a woman.”  Again he comes close to her and lowers his mouth to her ear, his breath tickling her, his mouth delicately teasing her ear.  Her heart begins to flutter and she leans into him, sighing and pulling him closer to her.  He leans in and begins to kiss her neck, and again he speaks, tickling the skin and rustling the ringlets of hair there.

                “Now it will be because you have become a monster.”  She freezes like a deer in the grasp of the panther, and he pulls away, and she watches dumbly as he walks away and takes the door that leads to his quarters instead of hers.  Finally the shock trickles away as the anger roars up and fries her mind, a roaring in her ears as she casts her gaze frantically around the room for something to take her anger out on.  She whirls to the wall by the window and plunges her fist through it, shattering the molding and cracking a supporting beam behind it.  A crack rents the air, fire lancing up her arm from her hand as she removes it and looks at it, bloody and broken from the stress.  Slowly, carefully she flexes the fingers and watches the tendons ripple under the skin, then brings it to her lips and delicately licks the wound.  She smiles, thinking of the phrase “lick their wounds” as a fierce hunger rips through her body at the taste.  Her body shudders and she looks in the mirror on the opposite wall, delighted to see her brown eyes turned to twin moons.  Again she gazes at her hand, pushing the bone that is sticking up under the flesh again with a painful crack, knowing that the healing cannot start unless the bones meet.  Then the healing starts rapidly with various clicks and cracks until it is whole again, and a part of her mourns the passing of the pain.

                Smiling, she goes for her champagne again and walks over to the window overlooking the city below her, the lights twinkling and some burning red through the rainy night.  She eats it in her ravenous gaze, a new hunger burning furiously in her heart.  She was not made of ice like so many claimed of her, but instead of a raging wildfire that would consume them, burning them all and fueling her.

                “A monster eh?” She mutters, taking a sip of champagne and holding the glass against her chest.  “Has a nice ring to it.”  Her grin widens and she finishes off the champagne as her butler Charles comes in to inquire after her.  Turning away from the window she greets him and passes off her glass, tossing her hair as she moves for the door to her quarters.  Then she pauses and turns to him again.

 

                “Oh, and take care of that, will you Charlie?” nodding toward the new hole in the wall.  And with that she almost skips to her quarters, soothed by the screams of her victims still in the basement to sing her to sleep.

 

                Something wet and chilling patters onto my skin, feeling like tiny iron hammers striking deep enough to chill my bones.  The fire that had been lancing through my body before has now become a dull throbbing, for which I am infinitely grateful; the healing must have taken effect.  Slowly I open my eyes, glad they are no longer swollen, and find that it is now nighttime and raining, with the glare of a light piercing through the darkness above me.  And then the smell hits me, more like bolls me over, and had it been tangible I am sure it would have driven me into the ground.  Death.  It was the cloying scents of decay and rotting meat left out in the sun for too long.  Immediately I turn onto my side as my body is wracked with heaving almost instinctively, but there is still nothing but a thin trickle of bile that is able to come up.  I spit the taste out and wipe my lips, pushing my hand against the muddy ground and rising to a sitting position, my body moaning in protest at the fire that plumes at my side.  Panic blooms like a wicked flower, but I push it away, take it to the recesses of my mind where it lurks and whimpers as if beaten, but I cannot let my mind run away with me.  Instead I begin looking over my hands and I see my skin turning to an unnerving purple-black with fingers jutting at unnatural angles.  Slowly, carefully I slide them back to connect the bones, wincing at the clicking and the pain.  Quickly the tissues and bones beneath the skin heal, and I check over my body for broken bones, connecting them here and there, for there is nothing like broken bones to halt the healing process.  Again the pain shards through my side like tiny bits of glass, and I wince, taking my attention away from the bones and pull up my shirt to inspect it.     

                Tiny, then big, the steel grey lines spider webbing out to encompass my side, beginning at a single point as if from the epicenter of a mini earthquake.  Silver!  Those bastards hadn’t shocked me; they had tried to poison me with silver!  Not enough to kill me obviously, but the very idea of it was disgusting, insulting, downright just pissed me off.  It had to of been my aunt’s idea, since our lineage was not common knowledge, by choice.  No wonder the prick had called me an animal.  I had been too out of it at the time for it to have registered, or even mattered then, for I had been resigned to death.  My vision wavers and glitters with the light in the raindrops, and I quickly reign in the anger, breathing deeply and calming it to deeper recesses.  That could come later, now I had to make sure I was well enough to escape, then find out where I was escaping from.