The 2nd Day of the 4th Moon, 1536 P.V.
Corax Asylum, Togaduine
The brazen bull was a spectacular piece of machinery. It served as oven, heater, musical instrument, and torture device all rolled into one. It was one of Nicolas’s favourite toys. Stacia’s complaint about being cold had earned her a short stint within the metallic beast. Nicolas could not leave her baking away for too long as this would risk death and he would have to listen to the irritating noise of Theaten, or rather Robert, whining.
In order to excite the first Immoless, Nicolas had chained her up as he, or rather Chives, built and lit the fire beneath the bull. Meatcleaver Pierre brought a gridle up from the kitchens and Nicolai-Nicolas Nachtvinsky, The Deep’s famous composer, arrived with his manuscript-parchment and quill in hand to plagiarise the elegant screams made by Stacia and emitted by the bull.
Nicolas encouraged Nachtvinksy, who had left his top hat off AGAIN, by rancidly dancing to the noise, whilst Webster blared the ‘music’ throughout the entire asylum, with the exception of the hall of mirrors where Nicolas had dumped the dumpling seller, or rather the Immoless Lucia, in preparation for her imminent demise.
After a short display of expressive dance, Webster raised a concern,
‘Nicolas, can we put the dancing on the back burner and retrieve Stacia before she is nothing but a heap of ash?’ He asked whilst cleaning his spectacles inside of the pocket-watch mirror that slung open about Nicolas’s neck,
‘She is not burning; she is getting toasty!’ Nicolas smiled. His face elongated slightly, then returned to normal.
Webster placed his spectacles back on his nose,
‘Take her out!’
‘WHAT?’ Nicolas shouted over the ruckus of the music and the mess of clocks chiming and ticking in the corridors throughout the asylum.
‘TAKE HER OUT!’ Webster bellowed.
‘One more minute and a surge of electricity!’
The door of the chamber swung back and forth in rhythm with the noise due to intentional poor hanging as opposed to any magick Nicolas cared to conjure. A shriek of electricity surged throughout the asylum from cell to cell and harmonised with the equally loud shrieks of the inmates and the mooing of Stacia.
‘Rapture!’ Nicolas roared, his eyes rolling in the decadent swill of suffering. His body moved faster. Each lift of his arms pulled his shirt and waistcoat up revealing the pale, dirty flesh of his stomach. He threw the cane from hand to hand and twisted and spun at high speed.
‘What about that theatre?’ Demize asked, dancing in the air to the beat.
‘Do you know what we need?’ Nicolas replied.
Webster rolled his eyes,
‘Some peace and quiet.’
All sound ceased at a wave of Nicolas’s gloved hand,
‘We need a banquet before the theatre, and a circus.’
‘Make it so! Make it so!’ Demize cackled with excitement.
‘It’s to please HER, isn’t it?’ Webster asked. Nicolas did not reply.
Now, Nicolas was quite determined that patients should have no privacy, nor should they know where Nicolas and his bizarre tortures would spring from next. As such he had engaged in an aggressive building program. Not him personally, he had no interest in any form of manual labour, but via various groups of thesapiens from the local villages, under the direction of Archie and the management of Chives, who did not especially want the job.
Each group would create a hidden corridor here or a secret room there, and then some of them would return to their homes so that the next set of builders could modify the building works just completed. Others simply disappeared. This way only Nicolas and the Nicolai knew the full atlas of the sprawling asylum; the dungeons, the cells, the secret passages, the hidden rooms, the library, the banqueting hall and the corrective facilities, and how to quietly move between them. What the asylum did not have was a theatre or a circus, and it was common knowledge in the field of medicine that lunatics liked to be entertained.
‘CHIVES!’ Nicolas roared.
‘Yes Sir?’ Chives sighed.
‘Two things Chives,’ Nicolas stammered, ‘Add a theatre to the circus, and a circus to the theatre, and let Nicolai-Mr Dibble know, and don’t pretend you can’t see him. So rude.’
‘For locals?’ Chives asked.
‘Don’t be ridiculous Chives, I will feed you to the wolves if this nonsense persists. The theatre is to entertain our inmates with magnificent works of art, and the exquisite performances of our dramatic community’
‘Do we have such things, Sir?’ Chives asked despondently.
Nicolas did not appreciate Chives’ constant negativity,
‘We will, Thyme. Just get it done.’
‘If you say so, Sir.’
Nicolas narrowed his eyes and glared at Webster who was grinning, then said,
‘I think we need some musical amplification, put on two records of whipping, enhance the brazen bull and fire up the diaphragm amplifier, so that the whole of Togaduine may hear this beautiful concerto!’
Needless to say, the noise was quite stifling. It was more stifling than the days Nicolas forced his guests to wear shockingly blurred spectacles, designed by Webster of course, and more stifling than the days he cranked up the boiler and burned the soles of everyone’s bare feet with the asylum’s unique underfloor heating system. Another of Webster’s genius ideas.
‘No, Nicolas, GET HER OUT NOW!’ Webster roared.
‘I concur with ze mirror man,’ Meatcleaver added.
‘Fine!’ Nicolas snapped. The clocks silenced, the music stopped, the screaming quelled and Nicolas opened the door to the brazen bull.
A smog drifted out. Nicolas yanked on the gridle, and Stacia slurped to the floor.
‘She’s toasty alright!’ Demize laughed, ‘Robert is going to have a fit.’
As Demize spoke the doorbell rang. Chives immediately hobbled off downstairs.
‘Take her to the cells by the back passage!’ Webster instructed.
Nicolas pulled the bull’s tail and a trapdoor opened in the floor. He lifted the still alive but somewhat roasted Stacia from the ground, conveniently ignoring the melted skin that stuck to the stone and the puss that oozed from her burns, and carried her to the cell below.
Once in the cell, he wrapped a sheet about Stacia’s body and knotted it to try and cover up the rather obvious burn marks. He then waited.
Eventually, Chives arrived with Theaten in tow,
‘Theaten, Sir!’ Chives said unlocking the cell door.
‘Robert, good to see you!’ Nicolas smiled, ‘Now shall we share the first Immoless? Sharing is caring.’
‘Did you change my banking details to Robert?’ Theaten asked.
‘I haven’t got time to run around banks all day, Robert. I’m a busy man. Now shall we share?’
‘She’s damaged,’ Theaten moaned, ‘what have you done to her? It was my turn to have an Immoless intact.’
‘She’s alive, isn’t she? And you just agreed to share.’ Nicolas smirked.
‘I did not!’ Theaten snapped, grabbing Stacia’s right arm.
‘You did so. You just said sharing is caring,’ Nicolas snorted grabbing her left arm.
‘No Nicolas, it’s my turn to have a whole Immoless, you had the last one of the last century.’
Theaten argued, pulling Stacia towards him.
‘We shared both!’ Nicolas retorted pulling her back in his direction.
‘I didn’t get any Immolesses.’
‘Then where are their skulls, Robert? Tell me, where are they? In your necro room of shame that’s where!’
Theaten’s underbite caught his lip and he dribbled, his eyes narrowed but he could not come up with an argument, so instead he shouted,
‘MINE!’ Yanking Stacia towards him.
Nicolas yanked back, and the whole matter landed knee deep in a tug of war.
Nicolas had failed to take into account the depth of the burns and the damage inflicted by the Nicolai, nor did he weigh up the Immortalis strength. Both pulled. Both pulled harder. The resultant onset of ripping did not flare through Stacia’s arms, but through her chest, spread down to her groin, and then the upper slit had a rather nasty disagreement with her neck.
The brothers continued to pull, ignoring Stacia’s hoarse screams, and her body ripped clean into two halves and a head that bounced thoughtlessly about the cell.
Nicolas released his arm,
‘You can have it. I don’t want it now.’
‘What am I supposed to do with her?’ Theaten asked.
‘Take her back to Castle D’Aten and play with her skull, like you usually do.’
‘And if I don’t want to?’
Nicolas smirked,
‘Wouldn’t it be a sad day if Count Pompous discovered you were shagging Anne when he is not around. Your mother might not approve either, Robert.’
Theaten grimaced,
‘Fine,’ he said, whilst trying to pick up all body parts at once and dropping them so the head went bouncing around again.
‘Use a sheet idiot,’ Nicolas huffed.
‘For what?’
‘Wrap her in the bed sheet to make her easier to carry.’
Theaten did as Nicolas suggested muttering about body parts stinking out his dungeons.
Nicolas waited until Theaten had finally wrapped her in the sheet, followed him to the front door and watched him get into his carriage,
‘Au revoir, Robert. I’ll let you know when Lucia is ready.’
Theaten shook his head and held aloft the great middle finger.
As the carriage drove away Nicolas yelled,
‘Chives, it’s Lucia’s turn!’
Lucia found herself trapped in Nicolas’s hall of mirrors, another favourite of his torture devices, Nicolas was easily pleased. Oddly enough, he found psychological torture much more exciting than physical torture. Physical torture had grown somewhat repetitive and dull, and this had been worsened by the sudden rise in masochists.
Lucia had one gift, mediumship, like Stacia. Or at least she thought she did. Each Immoless had one key gift that would be exploited for the charade of not defeating the Immortalis, and the Electi were not very creative in assigning these alleged gifts.
Lucia could listen to thoughts, to an extent, and touch the dead. Over the years, her psychic skills had developed. At least they had been developed as much as one can expect given the insular living conditions, old age, and complete disinterest of her mentors, the Electi.
Unlike Stacia who had simply gone bonkers, Lucia could actually reach the dead. This surprised the Electi as much as it surprised Lucia, and Donotoris found great amusement in taking their medium to funerals to relay to the mourners how much their dead relatives hated them.
Trapped between the looming mirrors, and a little confused and sleepy, Lucia tried to use her one poorly honed skill to hear Nicolas’s thoughts. She had heard them not half an hour before, echoing throughout the halls of the asylum in her semi-conscious state, but suspected that was at his behest not hers.
Nicolas liked to be heard, it did not matter to him who was listening. She had heard him speaking to two other beings, Demize and Webster, though she had not seen them in person. The raucous music, and clanking of clocks, made concentration nigh on impossible. This was further exacerbated by the cries of the confused inmates. Lucia’s mind only received a muffled confusion of multiple voices collapsing together in one raucous, agonising scream.
Nicolas had been personally spying on Lucia for moons and clearly recognised her as an Immoless from day one for two reasons. First, prior to the dumpling selling incident, she had asked to be admitted to the asylum, which was odd as no one asks to be admitted to an asylum unless they either have a motive or are clinically insane.
Secondly, Nicolas knew that a second an Immoless was due. In the years leading up to an Immoless invasion, Nicolas would send out trackers to locate the pending Immolesses, so that his ravens could follow them around and report to Nicolas on their piss poor educational progress. Webster told Nicolas on several occasions that this behaviour was both odd and creepy. Nicolas disagreed, hinting that it was the start of a romantic game.
Nicolas was known throughout The Deep for his glorious affinity with romantic gestures. Seven years previously, Nicolas had developed one of his obsessions for a red haired thesapien who lived in the town of Doloros. She had not been bred as a tribute, which Nicolas found most inconvenient. Her name, he learned, was Clara, and she was a milkmaid at a local homestead. Nicolas initially approached her father, asking if he would like to have her committed. Her father, Jonas, was not too thrilled with the invitation, and politely declined.
After visiting her early one morning, under the darkness of dusk, Nicolas came to the conclusion that one of her cows was possessed by a rival suitor. Clara argued that this was not the case, but Nicolas did not believe her. He claimed that the best way of exorcising cattle was to pour the milk across the barn floor and perform an Irkallan ritual. The exorcism consisted of making the cow levitate, whilst Nicolas danced and chanted absolute gibberish.
The cow, not being accustomed to any sort of flight, kicked up a stink, and during the thrashing thunked Clara so hard that she slipped on the milk and impaled herself on a rake. Nicolas was most disappointed but the Nicolai did enjoy tender milkmaid ribs with Doloros blood wine that very same evening.
Having followed Lucia around for several weeks, as well as the other Immolesses, Nicolas was quite aware of her failings. He considered the idea of sending a second Immoless to Corax, after an unfinished, now finished, debacle with the first Immoless, most foolish. However, Pater Solis, the high priest of the Electi, considered it a master plan. He argued to The Electi that sending a second Immoless to penetrate the asylum was an unexpected stroke of genius. He proposed that Lucia should raise the ghost of the Ducissa Elena, the previous owner of Corax, and allow the Ducissa, Nicolas’s late patron, to crush the Immortalis. Lucia had no say in this matter as she had been bred for this purpose and her choices consisted of the asylum and death, or just death. Lucia considered these both such enticing options.
The clocks grew louder and a strange humming belted through the corrective facilities. Lucia covered her ears, but the cacophony of noise continued inside her head.
The hall of mirrors consisted of a debris of angled mirrors in a series of twisting and narrowing corridors, confused by Webster’s lighting arcs. These lighting arcs made mirror and reality indiscernible. The mirrors jutted in all directions forming a small labyrinth of reflection and disorientation.
Lucia tried to focus on her mind again. Nothing. She looked back and forth trying to locate an exit, this was made more difficult by the random reflections that would appear in the glass; reflections of inmates flayed, carved and occasionally stretched beyond the realms of possibility. Their open wounds were visible and festering, and their tortured screams sang almost in harmony with the sound of squealing violins.
Lucia felt a cold presence form behind her. She shivered.
‘Is there an issue with the service, Dear Lucia?’ Archie growled, stepping through a mirror to her rear. ‘Have we not been hospitable?’
Lucia’s head shook as she turned to face him, she did not consider a night of being chained in restraints, tortured, and repeatedly branded and bitten by the Nicolai hospitable at all.
‘Another ingrate!’ Demize yelled over the music.
The mirrors closed in on Lucia and filled with images of Chester’s Nasty Tongue-Monster face, and through Archie’s own will, Archie’s skull intentionally elongated to match the mirage of Chester. His eyes narrowed, and his cheek bones lengthened. Demize called this incarnation, which occurred in the Nicolai
‘The Long-Faced Demon,’ and claimed that it appeared when Nicolas was consumed with lust, anger or hunger. Nicolas told him that no such being existed and wondered at Demize for making up fairy stories.
The fact was, the Nicolai could merge physically. Parts of the Nicolai’s psyche could merge, subconsciously or at will, and just as Nicolas shared the Nicolai’s perceptions, a fragment of the consciousness of any Nicolai could share his perceptions, even if they were elsewhere, because they were all parts of Nicolas.
The Long-Faced Demon occurred when Nicolas was overly emotional or stimulated and a little bit of Chester would appear in Nicolas or the Nicolai, or a little bit of Nicolas would appear in Chester, creating the Long-Faced Demon. It was a shadow of the complete and fully merged Nicolai, Nicolester, but we shall come to that mess later.
Archie’s physical shift was not a pretty sight. The Long-Faced Demon adopted Nicolas’s hair, Chester’s close Nasty Tongue-Monster eyes and a chin that one could land a meteor on.
Chester, being Nicolas’s Evro, could merge with any of the other Nicolai, but after an incident that occurred during the eighth moon of 323 P.V. Nicolas decided to place legal limitations on Chester. The problem arose when Chester merged with Nicodemus, and the sadistic two, or rather one, ate an entire Threnodylian brothel of women leaving quite a mess and causing a PR disaster that Nicolas and Ledgerly had to clear up by reminding the brothel owner that she may not want the public spotlight shone on some of her less amenable hobbies.
Prior to the feast, Nicodemus-Chester had played Pin the Tail on the Prozzie, Hang and Draw the Hooker, Hack up the Hoe, and Chester’s favourite Screw the Slut to the Ceiling.
Nicolas had Behmor form a contract whereby Chester, Nicolas’s walking dick, was only allowed to merge with Nicolas and Smythe, unless Nicolas was part of the merger. Nicolas was the only one who could control the Chester libido, and Smythe was quite benign as he was usually too stoned to notice.
The owner of the brothel, Valkyrie, also a psychotherapist, was a Longevitas. Not an immortal as such, but a being who could live for centuries and centuries without ageing. She was a descendant of Kyrie’s sister Metkyrie, and her mother had trained her in the noble art of managing discrete services. Valkyrie happened to be away at the time of the incident pursuing her hobby. Even madams have hobbies. Her hobby was serial killers, and serial killing. She examined the modus operandi of other serial killers and honed their methods to create works of art from her own victims as a homage to her favoured serial killer of the moment.
Valkyrie happened to be tracking the infamous flying serial killer, Dyerbolique, on the day in question, and had left him a love letter in the form of a pair of young lovers screwed together with their hearts removed and placed in their mouths. She watched as Dyerbolique found the message left in his wake, and she watched as he carved his initials into the bodies sacrificed to him.
It seemed to have been a successful day, that was until Valkyrie returned to the brothel and found a dreadful mess. There were body parts in every room, some were abandoned on the floor, others stapled to the walls and ceilings, skin hung from lamp shades, intestines were wrapped about the dining table like sausages and eyeballs had clearly been used to play squash. Even the curtain rails and coat hooks were smothered in the soggy debris. The curtain rails were less than impressed. Valkyrie did not complain to Count Tepes as she did not want to spread rumours about her own antics. Instead, she visited Behmor and promised her soul on death in exchange for fifty new ladies. Behmor shrugged, called Baal to write the contract and the matter was closed.
Getting back to Lucia, the Immoless brushed her filthy blonde hair from her cheeks and opened her pale lips to speak. Archie held up his hand and twisted it as he prepared to speak, he had no time for her ‘let me live’ pleas. They were futile anyway. She knew it, and he certainly knew it.
‘Let’s play Run Rabbit!’ Archie smiled. ‘You run, and if you can escape, I will let you leave. If you do not, well, Robert will have another pet for his dungeon, maybe even a live one this time,’ his smiled dropped to a sneer, ‘after I have finished with you, that is.’
‘You lie!’ She shouted over the thrumming noise. ‘You won’t let me go!’
‘She called you a liar!’ Demize tutted as he manifested from smoky glass. Archie pulled his cheeks wide and down and morphed into a Chester-esque Nasty Tongue-Monster, an extravagant form of the Long-Faced Demon, originally piloted by Chester, that drooled oodles of tongue, and scampered on all fours. The beast was adored by tributes and inmates alike, and although Nicolas and the Nicolai did Nasty Tongue-Monster well, Chester perfected him.
Archie drooled blood on the floor and, in response to Demize, growled,
‘Yes, she did.’
‘How terribly rude!’ Demize barked as he floated about Lucia, smoking a cigar.
‘You are quite right, no manners at all,’ Archie replied.
Webster glared from all of the mirrors,
‘Must we do this today?’ He sighed, looking at his pocket watch. As he did, Nicolas stepped through the glass of another mirror and also looked at his pocket watch, then all answered in a unified voice,
‘Yes, we must! But quickly!’
‘Why, why…?’ Lucia stammered, ‘Why are you talking like that?’
Nicolas’s face dropped. Archie’s face dropped. They both roared in one deep growl.
‘Run rabbit. Now!’
Nicolas lowered his legs and marched towards her, his sadistic grin lengthened with every step. Archie’s Nasty Tongue-Monster taunted her on all fours, springing from mirror to mirror.
Lucia did not need to be asked again. Her bare feet, blistered from a combination of electric shocks and Webster’s flooring, throbbed and stung with each step. Mirrors pulsated and moved about her as she darted through the labyrinth; a rabbit in an alien warren. Screams cried out from within the void of the glass. Some mirrors were devoid of her reflection, others distorted it into hideous creatures. Behind each creature another inmate screamed and writhed against their bondage.
‘Look how the bunny hops,’ Nicolas’s voice echoed. She turned but could not see him.
‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run rabbit, run rabbit.’ Archie’s voice pulsed in a sombre rhythm.
The pain in Lucia’s feet shifted to an agonising throb. Her whimpers excited Nicolas. She entered another passage gilded with mirrors. She veered right and left, constantly checking behind her. She pressed against the mirrors, hoping and praying for a secret exit. Her breath quickened. She could not see the monsters. She turned and walked backwards, then, once she was assured that they were far behind her she turned again. Her chest thudded against something hard, Nicolas’s body,
‘Boo!’ He mocked, driving the hare back.
‘This is quite fun, isn’t it?’ Demize chuckled, gliding over her.
‘She definitely has more spirit that our last lady, but I can’t wait to see our bride run!’ Nicolas replied. That comment was at least half true.
The music ceased. Lucia spun out of the glass rooms and into a corridor full of clocks, each louder and clunkier than the last. None told the exact same time. Some thesapiens lay alive but drained on gurneys randomly scattered about the hall. Lucia looked up and down, the realisation hit her, the Electi really had given her no understanding of the Immortalis. She was taught that they were nobility of the vampire classes. She had never been prepared for the level of cruelty she had experienced under Nicolas’s hand, nor the power wielded by him.
The Pauci Electi, being old men quite removed from reality, based everything they knew on tomes written by previous old men who were also on a different wavelength to everyone else, and their equally foolish predecessors who had misinformed them. A lot of the information shared with the Immolesses was, Lucia found to her detriment, not only misguided, but inherently wrong. Indeed, she had noted the latter observation when chained to Nicolas’s breaking wheel by Chester before being dumped in the dungeons. Irkalla, it seemed, revelled in suffering and taking, in accordance with its cold, bloodless ledger.
Lucia eventually found a small, rear spiral stairwell, one she attributed, wrongly of course, to servant usage. She hurried down the steps hoping to find an exit. Another corridor met her below, and this corridor was also adorned with clocks.
She did not notice the sneaky side room until she was passing by it. Her feet stopped dead. Twenty-seven Nicolases sat around a large oak table covered in tribute remains, each sipping individual glasses of thick red blood. They all turned to her, the blood dripping down their chins, and raised their glasses in a toast. She shuddered and forced herself to run further into the heart of Corax, in spite of the gaping blisters on her feet which had stretched into cuts and oozed with every step.
The clocks stopped, then all chimed at once in one monotonous groan. Lucia covered her ears. The chimes beat against her eardrums, accompanied by the howls of the inmates as another surge of electricity bounced wildly from cell to cell.
The music resumed. This time it was one repetitive chord on a poorly tuned piano. The Nicolai sipped again on their wine.
Nicolas used his secret corridors to pursue Lucia rather than disturb the feeding horde. As he danced through the narrow corridors he opened his pocket watch. Webster spoke through its mirror,
‘Is this going to go on all day?’
Nicolas admired his beauty in the bespoke mirror, alongside Webster, seemingly in no rush to pursue Lucia through the maze that was Corax.
‘Who knows?’ Nicolas chimed in response. ‘Am I boring you?’
‘You are boring him! Webster the killjoy!’ Demize spluttered from behind Webster’s image, ‘Webster has places to be, quite the man about town.’
‘Do you have somewhere else to be?’ Nicolas asked.
‘My lab!’ Webster responded, ‘Unless you want the horses unmanageable.’
‘Ten more minutes!’ Nicolas replied.
Webster frowned holding his hand to his chin,
‘I must insist, Nicolas, that you resolve this now!’
Lucia inadvertently ran from the corridor into an alcove that led into the chapel. The chapel was a crumbling, decimated mess filled with overturned chairs, old golden icons, and a decaying pulpit. In the centre, however, stood a well-maintained sarcophagus. One word was etched into it, ‘Elena.’ Lucia breathed a sigh of relief. Her destiny stood before her. She had trained to usurp the Immortalis by releasing the ghost of Ducissa Elena, the true owner of Corax, and now the opportunity presented itself.
Rumour had it that Nicolas had tricked Elena out of her rightful ownership of Corax and had had her killed. No one could prove it. No one tried to, but Lucia was taught that bringing the ghost forth in all of its vengeance and glory would redress Nicolas’s power. This was not true; it was just nonsense made up by The Electi. The Electi were not concerned with truth, they were concerned with the rituals required to keep the population happy, and that their tithes and taxes were paid.
Lucia closed her eyes and laid her hands on the sarcophagus. She breathed in deeply and focused on Elena. Her head throbbed. Her pulse sang. She directed all of her energies on touching hands with Elena and releasing her spirit. In the darkness of her mind, she could see a swirling white form. The form stepped closer, surely this was the ghost of Elena. It was an extraordinary sight; a woman, a beautiful image of forlorn white wisps, and pale lashes and lips. Her eyes were melancholy and downturned. Lucia stretched out her arms to the seemingly benevolent spirit. Elena reached back, a tear rolled down her cheek. Lucia stretched harder, her head thumping, but as much as she reached out their fingers just could not meet.
From the darkness a head dropped down between the two beings. Nicolas’s auburn hair hung wildly, but the top hat remained unmoved. He slowly spun between them as if suspended upside down from an invisible rope. Lucia gasped, pounded by awe and dread. Nicolas stopped spinning and locked eyes with her,
‘Madam, I have been informed that we must hurry this along, so if you wouldn’t mind!’ He tapped his cane against her forehead in an unnecessarily rough manner.
Lucia was instantly thrust into her senses and fell backwards, sprawling on the floor of the chapel. Nicolas sat on Elena’s tomb smiling,
‘Did you really think I would keep my fair patron in a coffin with her name on it?’ He huffed, ‘The Electi really are slacking. Last centuries Immolesses made a lot more effort! But, I guess, we get what we pay for!’
‘You don’t pay!’ Demize cackled.
‘And we don’t get either,’ Nicolas pointed out, ‘It’s becoming a chore. I really must write to The Electi.’ He turned to the mirrors hanging on the chapel’s west wall, ‘Webster, make a note, write a letter of complaint about sloppy social engineering to Solis.’
Webster nodded, but did not bother writing it down, as he knew Nicolas would soon lose interest and find something else to be distracted with.
Lucia attempted to stand,
‘SIT!’ Two voices roared from Nicolas’s mouth. An invisible weight forced Lucia to the stone floor.
Webster watched Nicolas as Nicolas debated with himself about the next course of action. Archie had lost interest entirely and was busy prodding the inmates in the cells with the point of his compass. He would experience Lucia’s fall vicariously through Nicolas anyway.
Nicolas’s waffling continued, and this muttering soliloquy soon became tiresome, so Webster interjected,
‘Horses, Nicolas!’ He snapped, ‘If they don’t get their inhibitors, we will have vampire horses running rampant, and complete anarchy. AGAIN!!’
‘I heard you the first time,’ Nicolas scoffed.
‘Let me remind you, Nicolas, that if that happens that nice supply of Togaduine red-headed tributes you like to make last will dry up, and you will sink into one of your moods.’
Nicolas frowned, clicked his fingers, then crouched down and pushed his face close to Lucia’s,
‘He is, of course correct.’
Lucia opted not to ask who Nicolas was talking to, as any interaction seemed to cause his moods to swing.
Lucia could neither see nor hear Webster as Nicolas had, some three weeks previously, mesmerised Allyra not to see Demize or Webster with the intention of causing her later confusion. The endeavour amused him so much that he extended the privilege to Lucia and Stacia.
‘Nicolas,’ a voice roared. Nicolas turned, and Meatcleaver Pierre bounded into the chapel, ‘hurry up. We ‘ave ze new tributes incoming and I need ze inventory of who is on ze newbie menu for tonight!’
‘Fine,’ Nicolas sighed.
Nicolas returned his attention to Lucia,
‘We had better move this circus along.’
‘Make her walk the tight rope,’ Demize grinned.
‘We don’t have a tight rope,’ Nicolas replied, ‘CHIVES! A tight rope for the theatre or the circus, butler’s choice.’
Nicolas did not even bother to see if Chives was present and just assumed that somehow his demands would be met.
Lucia attempted to drag herself away from the madness. Her feet, now beyond repair, could not carry her, so she rolled onto her front and dragged her body along the floor. Nicolas allowed her to crawl on her belly for a while, until Webster took to banging on the glass. Nicolas then, with mild irritation, as he was enjoying the spectacle, grabbed her by the ankle, pulled himself to his full height and dragged her through corridors and down the set of stairs that led to his chambers. Lucia did not welcome this uncomfortable experience as the stone steps caused a separation between parts of her scalp and her skull.
Once in his chambers, Nicolas opened a closet door and wheeled out a pulley. He then hung Lucia upside down by her knees.
‘Chives!’ Nicolas called, trying to ignore the potent, tasty blood dripping from Lucia’s head.
‘Rosemary!’ Nicolas called again, his eyes fogging with the scent of emerald. Chives was late, and Nicolas could not help himself. His teeth sunk into the hanging shoulder of his victim, and he fed voraciously. Nicolas would have preferred it if Chives put an appearance before he had to shout but was thankful for any excuse to gorge himself on blood. He also hated shouting as it drew unnecessary attention to his fine, and somewhat elusive self.
He released Lucia,
‘CHIVES!’
Nicolas pulled Lucia’s head back by her hair, forcing her to look him in the eye,
‘You just cannot get good service.’ The Long-Faced Demon in him barked at Lucia, ‘I’m sure after a very short lifetime with the Electi, you know this yourself.’
Chives entered the room with haste,
‘Yes Sir, what is it now?’
‘I don’t like his tone!’ Demize grumped. Nicolas waved a hand at the headless spectre silencing its intended roll.
‘Chives, do not summon Robert yet.’ Nicolas said, then, as Chives left the room, turned back to Lucia, ‘I had to listen to Robert moaning after the last Immoless debacle, and he made a mess of my dungeons.’ Nicolas tapped Lucia’s bloody head with his cane again and added, ‘And we don’t want a repeat of that now, do we?’
Nicolas had decided, whilst listening to Lucia’s screams as her head had hit the stone steps, that he might like to inspect her without clothes. Nicolas found clothes such an inconvenience, at least on the ladies he admired or even simply wanted to sample. He decided that Lucia was no exception to the rule, even though she was blonde. Nicolas rationalised that she could be hiding some secret weapon under what was left of her dress, and decided after weighing up all matters, to strip her.
Nicolas was in the process of removing Lucia’s gown with his talons when Chives knocked and entered his chambers putting Nicolas in a filthy mood,
‘Have you no decency, man!’ He snapped, ‘This Immoless is not dressed!’
‘Indeed Sir,’ Chives muttered, ‘However, I thought it may interest you to know that Ghorab has just relayed a message, hence my delay, for which I am truly sorry and beg for your forgiveness.’
‘Just get on with it,’ Nicolas said, swinging Lucia back and forth.
‘Bigglesworth had an incident with the third Immoless and once again she is in the sea with Rachnoc.’
Nicolas ripped off Lucia’s gown completely, discarded it on the floor, then reprimanded Lucia,
‘Don’t you think you should cover yourself up when there are gentlemen present?’
Lucia did not answer. Her head continued to bleed, and Nicolas licked the blood from her scalp.
‘The Jester thinks he’s a dog,’ Demize laughed as he sat on Chives’ head.
Nicolas stopped licking, and looked at the head,
‘You do make an excellent hat. I would wear you myself if you didn’t smell so bad.’
‘Are you talking to me, Sir?’ Chives asked.
‘Chives, we discussed you not being a hat earlier. Do try to pay attention.’
Chives ignored the Nicolai nonsense and returned to the matter in hand,
‘But getting back to the issue of the third Immoless.’
‘Yes, she is in the sea, Chives. I am not deaf.’
Demize rocked back and forward on the head of the weary henchmen,
‘You may not be deaf, but looking at that suit, you are clearly blind.’
‘I told you, this is the fashion!’ Nicolas replied, ‘Everyone will be wearing plaid soon, you will see!’
‘I stand with Demize on this one,’ Webster interjected, ‘The plaid has got to go!’
‘The plaid stays, and that is not up for discussion,’ Nicolas said whilst licking Lucia’s nipples.
‘Sir.’ Chives interrupted again. It was always an epic task to get through to Nicolas, and not one for the weak-willed or feint hearted and Nicolas was getting pithy,
‘Chives you are growing tedious now.’ He groaned, but his attention was still fixed on Lucia’s bare breasts.
‘Yes Sir,’ Chives said humbly, ‘However, Bigglesworth shot his canons before landing the ship’
‘That’s his problem, isn’t it?’
‘Ummm, not exactly, Sir, since according to the porters the Commodore said your bride mistook him for you.’
‘Oh marvellous!’ Nicolas sighed, ‘Now she thinks I’m trigger happy. That’s just great. Never mind, I will straighten this all out today with my magnificent self.’
‘Are you going to tell her about your moods, Sir?’ Chives asked. Chives found it more comfortable to refer to the Nicolai as moods as opposed to a swarm of repulsive goblins.
‘No Chives she doesn’t need to know about the Nicolai yet. I think we have done enough damage without adding more problems.’
‘Very good, Sir.’
Chives went to leave then stopped and fidgeted from one gammy foot to the other,
‘Might it not be easier just to tell her everything from the outset, Sir?’
Nicolas shook his head,
‘Don’t be absurd, Chives, you know nothing about love. Now, do we have salt?’ He asked, ignoring the ghoul’s concerns. ‘Salt, and my best carving knife.’
Chives shuffled away, muttering, and returned, muttering, with the salt and knife. Nicolas lifted the head of Lucia and shook the salt all over the deep, bleeding gashes in her scalp. The stinging sensation forced a scream from her mouth.
‘That amount of noise is unnecessary,’ Nicolas snapped. He then carved a strip of the remaining skin from her skull, dropped it into his hands and sat on the floor ramming it in his mouth,
‘Chives,’ he said, talking with his mouth full, ‘take this one back to the dungeon.’ He then turned to Webster, ‘Time to don the great disguise!’
Webster sighed and closed his eyes.
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