I'm dumbfounded as I throw June a cautious glance, she seems entirely unperturbed. Her face is laxed without a hint of fear, eye closed. Peaceful, contented even. The inappropriate behavior baffles me, I'd be quaking in my boots if I were her.
A throaty purr turns menacing as it revs like a furious engine, spreading and bouncing off the cave walls. I'm not the only one who flinches from the snarl.
"Meet my gaze profligate," an unplaceable accent swims through the space, enveloping it. The cultish lady's words are both deadly and memorizing like a polished sabor unsheathing from her lips. They hover in the air, threatening to send heads rolling.
Juniper's response is a silent one and it's strangely defiant. There's something sardonic about the way her eyelids slide open. My hair stands up on ends as the woman bristles before her, not pleased with her lack of respect.
'What the hell are you doing, *June*?' She's going to make them even more pissed off!
The woman hisses with palpable fury, her mass of twisty hair looks like it's about to spontaneously ignite.
"*Lowly cur*."
A shadow sweeps toward Juniper as if summoned. She gasps, keeling forward, restraints jerking as a boot buries in her gut. A white hand flashes by her face, connecting with a smack. Black hair jumps to the side, the throat collar pings with sudden tension.
She expels a breath as if doused with freezing water, a string of drool dribbles off her chin. The kicker snags a fist full of her bangs, June's face is in a daze as it's forced up into view.
The orange haired woman sneers down, flipping her head to the side with melodrama and spitting at Juniper's feet.
"This is much overdue. You cannot comprehend my delight to witness you burn; in cleansing the earth of you."
"Cleansing…" Juniper slurs in tipsy muse around her bloodied teeth, "I didn't know you aspired to be the Thorn's housemaid. You make a fetching serv-oof!"
The wild haired woman is upon her before she can finish her sloppy taunt. The minion hastily maneuvers out of the way, executing a leap in perfect time, the two of them move together like a ricocheting bullet.
The fancy heel collides first with her chest, followed by sharp fingers latching on. She jostles her, fabric ripping at the seams, whipping her about like a dog shredding a newspaper to bits. Juniper's in no position to defend herself. This insane vampire is mangling her to death!
"I have half a mind to cut out tongue but then I'd have to suffer your crippled moaning!" the woman bites out.
The wall shudders as Juniper is bashed against it with a final thrust. A scanty rain of pebbles bounce like loose teeth. I pray none *are* teeth. She leaves June groaning and dangling in her restraint, a destructive child casting aside their banged up toy.
The woman brushes a stray princess curl hanging between her eyes and smooths it into her abundance of hair. A manner of such collected sophistication you'd never suspect her of throwing a savage tantrum just a few seconds before.
The lady begins to pace, the movement reminds me of the long legs of an elegant bird, clawed feet never wavering, precise as they prowl. Thin, pale fingers run down the slight curve of her abdomen.
She slows, her back facing June and eyes cast downward, regarding me coolly. A smirk plays on her lips, chin slightly elevated like I'm no more than an insignificant pest.
"It seems your rotten spawn is troubled by your deserved afflictions," her tongue clicks with blatant disapproval, "Would she be so sympathetic if she knew all your deeds? That you are a despicable harbinger of destruction."
"Or perhaps the fledgling is bewitched like so many of my peers," she bows her head, one scalding eye trains over the shoulder at June, "Mislead by your falsehoods."
Her lip curls in disgust, "But *I* am not so easily deceived by what you are," she raises a regal finger skyward then curls it into her temple. That ivory face strains with arising wrath, skewing it into something horrifyingly alien and predatory, "You are con, you are unworthy and *you* *are* *guilty*!"
The woman straightens, rounding her penetrating gaze to all her followers. Fear chokes the room like smoke without an exit, and it's not just my own.
One of the robes steps forward without motion to do so. He pulls back the hood with both hands in a dancer-like motion, light brown locks curl around the edges of his round cheeks. His young yet stoic face and full pouty lips are utterly composed, almost bored. I wonder if he was turned before reaching adulthood. He's about my height, making him on the short side. I'd say cherub-like but there's maturity and definition in his features. He's too world weary to be a boy.
"Monarch Christina," he addresses their daunting leader evenly. His gentle boyish tone is oddly familiar. And her name rings a bell too, but I can't pinpoint where I've heard it.
"Speak, Raymond," she commands expectantly, "Where is Ella?"
"I suspect Mordecha-"
He stops mid sentence as if cut off but no one's made a peep or even twitched. He stares directly into Christina's hard eyes. The subtle fluctuations in their expressions make it apparent they are silently communicating. Mind reading? I wonder if everyone here is capable of it.
'Stay out of my head. Stay out of my head.' I find myself chanting internally, but I don't know if it's doing anything. Hell, if they can hear it maybe I'm just digging a deeper grave by annoying them.
Raymond continues, speaking slowly as if to be sure he's understood, "Ella and I… Parted after capturing the girl. I brought her here and she stayed behind, we have not been reunited since."
Another steps forward, removing his hood. He's much taller than the boyish one. A face stern with a natural scowl and his hair cropped short. The sky blue coloring in his irises is the only mercy to his bleak countenance.
"You have some opinions on Mordechai, as well?" Christina tilts her head, staring off into space as if captivated by voices I can't hear.
"Difficult but useful," his response is short and blunt like a soldier. It matches his look.
Christina chuckles in her throat and there's a break for what I suppose is another secret conversation. Her features melt into a frown.
"Maimed and destroyed my most skilled oracles?" she inquires with a chilling edge to her musical intonation, "Of course! How many slain?"
"The accused killed four before we could subdue her."
A poorly timed snort sounds from Juniper's direction.
A few immobile hoods move a fraction to share in my stare of incredulity. Juniper has never come across as stupid, so what is possessing her to provoke them? Maybe that thrashing actually beat the good sense out of her.
"Find the slaughter of my lineage amusing, do you?" Christina closes her eyes, glowering through bared fangs, making her collected tone all the more disconcerting.
Rhythmic clatter startles me with its abruptness as metal scraps against metal. Two cloaks waste no time grappling what I thought were decommissioned utility wheels flanking June's sides. The ominous tick of heavy chain links crank in the cavern as they wrap in some jimmied unfriendly contraption.
Juniper grunts as her chains strain, clicking and clanking as she's forced off the floor by a series of rusty pulleys.
Her arms are pulled up and apart, flat against the wall. The collar clasp lifts June by her throat, strangling and cutting in. Her legs wobble, failing to keep up. Every bit of her is plastered tighter against the gritty cave with every rotation. I jerk in response to her discomfort but can only watch as it becomes undeniably apparent how screwed we are.
As they stretch June against the wall Christina retrieves the thin needles forming the crown around her head. Long pieces fall from her from her elaborate half up. The hair pins are sharpened, lethal looking, not your typical fashion accessories.
She leaves the thickest pin alone, a fancy looking chopstick, something a Chinese empress might wear. The tip is fashioned with a ruby gemstone, cut like a blooming flower, the polished silver complements every explicit detail. It must be worth a fortune.
Juniper is on her tiptoes when they stop cranking. She grimaces, shifting around to ease her predicament.
"I've learned you've gained the reputation of Reaper. How does this fail to surprise me?" Christina states as her head sways. Her finger rustles over those sharp spines, thumbing through them rhythmically like a deck of cards. Her expression is menacingly cool, "Whether you are a true Reaper or not is immaterial. Just another nail in your eminent coffin."
"And I… am your undertaker, Juniper," I shudder at the low statement. Her eyes narrow with eagerness, lips curling seductively around her malice, "But not so hasty. For time is all we really have."
A woman and a man approach Christina in a motion that appears choreographed, their hoods slide back in total synchronicity. Christina hands both of them a bundle of fine needles as they pass on either side.
The two bearing the needles stalk to Juniper, one goes left and the other right toward each strung up wrist. Christina's shoulders shake with silent laughter, that cruel smile stretching wide and wrinkling her nose.
They go for Juniper's hands. She curls them into fists, struggling against the cuffs. The chains jingle as she grunts but the vampires pry her fists apart, forcing her palms and fingers flush against the wall. I start to hyperventilate, sensing a wave of Juniper's distress.
An awful sound of anguish breaks through clenched teeth as one drives a needle into her middle finger, right under the nail bed,. I gasp and squeeze my eyes shut as if that will make it stop. Our telepathic connection is numbingly intense.
"Go ahead, bring forth your claws," Christina coos with pleasure, "It'll only get worse."
I bury my face in the ground, twisting into a grimace as I hear Juniper thrash, spit, then cry out uneven.
The erratic gasps and hellish shrieks that should never come out of a person seem to go on without end, getting louder and more desperate. I can *hear* the metal sliding and poking where it doesn't belong, splitting the tissue, parting her flesh. It's louder than it should be through the tortured cries. Her torment is a tornado tearing a house from the foundation.
I can't stand this. I can't stand it!
"Please stop," I whisper, trembling like a coward.
More horrible noises echo off the rocks, the envisionment of needles prodding is clear as a motion picture, stabbing and digging around in her fingers. Sliding and ripping and lifting.
My ears ring from a piercing howl. I feel faint, head full of ungodly noises I'll never unhear. I curl my knees into my stomach balling up with my head in between my legs.
Those chains beat against the wall, that screaming doesn't end. It's uncontrollable, cracking in pitch. The worst is Juniper's attempts to suppress the cry, eventually it bursts forth, pent up in a harrowing rush of pain.
I mash my forehead into my thighs as I writhe, feeling sick and angry. I can't stand this!
I lift my head up, eyes squeezed so tight they're damp at the dehydrated edges. I shout at the top of my stinging lungs, "Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!"
Everything goes quiet besides a ragged sighing.
I slowly force one eye open as it lands on Juniper's heaving chest. Her breath forces out in fevered hisses past exposed fangs. Snarled strands of hair shadow her expression but I see blood trails running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin.
Those trembling fingers are a mess, reddened and raw. Half of them are missing fingernails, others have needles sticking out of the end and some are unexpectedly blistered.
Her toes are curled away from a torch at her bare feet. Looks like one vampire ditched the needles to prod her with a hot ended stick instead.
'What is wrong with these people! Why do they feel the need to enforce such cruelty?'
"You feel her treatment is unjust?" My bloodshot eyes flick to the side, startled at the response to my thoughts.
Christina is gracefully crouched at my side. Symmetrical eyebrows arched over her sangria colored eyes, evaluating me. I try to shut her out of my head, grazing her evasive presence. She's like a brazen gust blowing through the twists and turns of my brain. Too strong.
"Do you know what your sire has done? The crimes she has committed?"
I clench my teeth trying to get my brain to shut up and shut off. The question immediately triggers memories without permission; all the people and vampires I witnessed Juniper attack or slaughter, the hearts she sucked dry. I don't know vampire laws, I don't know what the Thorn consider crimes!
"Of course you don't know our law, because your master has failed you," I almost detect pity through her disdain.
"Your master is a *liar*… Worthless, harlot, *filth*!"
"And you…" Juniper speaks through her pants, grinning weakly, "Failed your sired by sending them… to be devoured by *filth*."
'Shut up, June!' I give her a look as I yell at her in my head.
Christina stands, drinking in Juniper with her bottomless stare, "Perhaps you're right. I did fail them," a dark sideways smirk crawls up her cheek, "And this will be their retribution."