The Vampire Executioner (A necromancer romance novel)

Chapter 20: Playtime

Esmeralda

I hid in the bathroom as heat filled my cheeks as I remembered how I had been pawing at Lucan like some love sick puppy, how humiliating. I had no idea how I was ever going to face him ever again, I’d practically tried forcing myself on him, the poor man.

I slowly slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor with my knees pulled against my chest. If there had been a window in here, I probably would have climbed out and ran like a coward.

I did take a moment to enjoy the warm feeling I felt that he had not taken advantage of me while I had been in that state. He could have. I’d have done anything he’d asked in that state. But he hadn’t. Instead he’d stopped me. Protected me. Respected me.

A knock on the door jolted me from my thoughts.

“Hey Es, you ok in there?”

Dana.

I sighed dramatically.

“I’m fine,” I called out. “I just might not be able to show my face ever again.”

She laughed and spoke through the door, “open up you silly t**t, he’s not going to hold it against you. He’s to blame not you, you had no control.”

I shuddered remembering the feeling. I would have literally done anything for him, been anything for him, just to make him happy. If he had told me to walk into traffic, I would have. If he’d told me to jump off a cliff, I would have.

I had seen him as my master and the thought of having no control over myself was terrifying. I understood the fear in the queen’s eyes now, and she didn’t even know that he could control us. How much more terrified she would be if she knew the full truth. I didn’t know what he was, but I knew he was much more than any ordinary necromancer.

I eventually opened up the door and let Dana take me back out the front, but I made sure to hide from Lucan. Luckily, he stayed in his office most of the day. It wasn’t until the end of the day that I had to worry.

Dana was still grilling me about whether me and Lucan were secretly dating and I’d been saying no for hours. I couldn’t tell her the truth if he wasn’t ready for anyone to know, and I wasn’t even sure we were dating anyway, I didn’t know whether last night had been just some casual fun for him or what.

I was saying no to Dana for the fifteenth time that day when I heard Lucan getting ready to leave his office. I ran out from behind the desk, grabbed my bag nearly knocking the coat stand over in my haste, and to Dana I rushed, “sorry, gotta go.” And I ran out of the door like the coward I was.

I was almost to the train station and winter had made it dark around six in the evening, it was half six now, and I was walking along when I heard someone walking behind me.

I turned around but no one was there, I shrugged it off and carried on walking until I heard it again, the sound of footsteps behind me only closer this time.

Ok, now I knew I wasn’t imagining things. I quickened my pace and turning the corner I found myself face to face with Sadie.

“My dear pet, I’ve come to take you home.” The smile on her face was ice cold.

Fear hit me. Not the normal kind. Not nerves. Real fear. The kind that made your blood run cold and your body go numb.

I tried to hide the panic on my face and in my voice and answered, “why?”

Sadie never spoke to me, let alone would come pick me up unless she wanted to take me into what she called her ‘playroom.’

“I’ve missed you of course, and I’ve heard about your new friend, I’d love to hear all about him while we play.”

Cold terror rushed through my body, Although she hadn’t ‘played’ with me for over thirty years, I still remembered the whips, the hooks, the instruments tearing into my flesh as if it were only yesterday.

I panicked and started backing away and bumped into Judith, her little sidekick, and I did mean little as in only eleven years old when she’d been turned. She scared me maybe even more than Sadie, she may not be the one to inflict the pain directly on me, but she definitely enjoyed it in twisted ways.

My mind had never been able to process looking at this eleven-year-old child with the mind of an eight hundred-year-old vampire.

Being so young, her mind and body had never developed after she had been turned, and it had driven her slightly mad, something had broken somewhere along the way and twisted into something very dark and wrong. Her favorite food were men who liked young children for all the wrong reasons, and she didn’t like to kill quickly either.

I was no match for her, she was much older than me, and even though she was small she had the strength of power behind her. Her eyes were dark red with flecks of light red, her skin was almost as white as The Mother of the Night’s and her long white hair spilled around her shoulders like fresh snow. She was very odd yet beautiful looking. Like one of those porcelain dolls that sat smiling sweetly at you while making you deeply uncomfortable.

I tried to move away from her, but she gripped my wrist tightly. “No, stay and play with us, won’t you?” She smiled sweetly up at me and this time I did gulp.

Sadie walked off without a word and Judith slipped her hand into mine to make it appear as though she were simply a child holding my hand, but I knew if I so much as tried to slip free she’d crush it like a vice.

She hummed while we walked, and I knew Sadie was taking me back to her special play room. She had a home outside of the clan like me, although she spent most of her time in the queen’s mansion, she kept her home for moments like this, where she could t.orture in peace.

Her place wasn’t far, and it wasn’t really even a home, it was more of an abandoned small warehouse she’d bought. She had soundproofed it and as we went inside, I saw everything was still the same. She had her sharp instruments of pain lined up on a table that had a white cloth over it, and above that were her flogging items lined up and hanging from the wall.

Against the far back wall was where they put me, and raising my arms, they attached the metal cuffs that were attached to the chains on the wall.

I felt sick with terror.

My breathing became uneven and my hands started shaking.

I still had the scars from when she used to t.orture me because without drinking blood I couldn’t heal. There was nothing worse than being t.ortured and not being able to die.

She didn’t waste time and was no longer talking either, which meant she was ready. She picked up the long thick black w.hip first and had Judith use the weird contraption they had made so that the chains loosened, and I fell to the floor, still chained but allowed more legroom.

She began to whip my back and the back of my legs. I tried my best not to scream because I knew she liked that. She went over to the wall and chose another w.hip, this one with small little hooks on the end, and this time, I did scream.

I felt dizzy and sick, and was barely conscious. I’d lost focus on what instruments she was using on me, all I knew was that we were now on the sharp ones.

She had never tried before, but she was holding some pliers, like the full on old Victorian ones, she had Judith hold my mouth open so that she could try to pull out my fangs. I was too weak to scream, so I quietly cried and pleaded.

I’d been whipped, beaten and cut, and while Sadie now tried to place the pliers around one of my fangs, I saw over her shoulder and through the blood dripping into my eyes someone crashing through the door.

It was Lucan and he was covered in blood and looked enraged. Sadie tried to mind control him but nothing happened. Judith tried to play the innocent child, but he hesitated for less than a second before walking towards her.

Placing his hand on her shoulder, he whispered something under his breath, and I watched as she began to decompose and rot before my eyes. She began to scream as skin slid off bone and decay rapidly set in, she barely made it to the door to run away when she collapsed to the floor and slowly became nothing more than a pile of gooey flesh on the floor. It was horrifying.

Sadie watched the whole thing unable to move from terror, and then she whispered, “so it’s true then, you are Death?”

He turned to look at her and answered, “for you, yes.”

Sadie was frozen. I’d never seen her afraid before. Never. She enjoyed fear, fed off it, played with it like a cat with a wounded animal.

But now she was the one looking terrified.

Her eyes were wide and all the colour had drained from her already pale face.

Lucan barely looked human anymore. Not physically. He still looked like himself. Still had the same Face I’d been staring at like and i.diot for weeks now. Still had the same sexy honey-blonde hair tousled and almost falling into stunning golden flecked ice blue eyes with a violet ring.

But there was something else there now. Something ancient. Something cold. The room itself felt different around him. Heavy.

Like the air had thickened and become difficult to breathe.

I could feel his power leaking from him again, but not like before. Not soft. Not peaceful. Not whispering promises of safety and peace. This felt darker. Colder. Like standing at the edge of a cliff and realising there was absolutely nothing beneath you.

Sadie was close enough to the doorway that she could run, and she did, she ran as fast as she could from the room, but Lucan didn’t bother to give chase, he rushed over to me and knelt before me. “Esmeralda.”

His voice sounded different now. Gentle.

Dana came in a few minutes later and ran to me, falling to her knees to check me over.

I gently placed my fingers against Lucan’s cheek questioningly. Blood was smeared across it, his jaw too and down to his neck.

“It’s not my blood,” he reassured me.

Dana carried on for him. “Lucan wanted to talk to you and went to your place, but when you weren’t there he had a feeling something wasn’t right. Long story short, we questioned some vamps that ended in bloodshed.” She glanced at Lucan and he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“How did you…find me,” I croaked. No one knew Where Sadie took her victims unless they were the victim or one of her close little sidekicks.

Lucan pulled his top off, so he could use it to clean me up and answered, “I can talk to the dead, not just zombies. I used the spirits to help me find you.”

He was trying to wipe away as much of my blood as he could, but more seemed to be spilling from my body.

“Why not...use them…to find the queen?”

“They can only help me locate people I’ve met, don’t ask me why or how it works. I have no clue, and they won’t tell me, all I do know is that there has to be some sort of relationship between me and the person I want to find, whether a family connection, friend, or lover.”

He gave up on trying to clean me up and picked me up and cradled me against his chest.

Dana took his top so there would be no evidence of us being here and we left.

And as darkness started pulling me under, I remember thinking only one thing.

Lucan came for me.