Domestic Disturbance *HF* Chapter 8
By Gene
"What then?" Malachi said, squinting against the wind.
"That part's easy. We head back to the house and prepare for war. Grab all the weapons we can and make our way back to the Keep to free your father, if he's still alive. If he's gone or dead, we get help and hound them until we've made them all pay."
They reached the crest of the hill, then began to make their way down the other side. About 1/4 mile from the woods, Alice looked back to see their pursuers.
"Oh, shit," she said.
"What?" Malachi asked, looking over his shoulder.
"They're up to something."
The six men had stopped at the top of the hill and linked hands. There was the crackly feel of electricity in the air. Malachi and Alice saw a flash, then felt nothing at all.
***
Gene screamed as the glowing coal was pressed into his armpit. His world turned white with pain and he felt his bladder release. When the roaring in his ears that was his scream subsided, he heard laughter.
"That's a nasty place for a burn, sir. It'll hurt when ye move, hurt when you're standin' still. Hurt when ye sweat." McConnell tossed the coal back into the fire and looked at Gene. "Ye wet yourself. That always happens, every time. It's just a matter of what needs to be done before it happens. Soon you'll mess yourself, too."
"Good. Then you'll finally have a hot meal." Gene growled. McConnell laughed, then slapped Gene hard across the face. Gene was suspended from chains in ceiling, but more chains on the floor were bound to his feet, keeping him taut as a bowstring in the middle of the room so he'd feel the most of McConnell's blows.
"I'm gettin' tired of this my friend. The Clan Chief wants you alive. Wants you as one of us. But you don't have to be. You may die first. Die in great pain."
He reached under Gene's kilt and Gene braced himself, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes and saw McConnell holding Gene's dirk inches in front of Gene's eyes.
"Thought I was goin' after somethin' else?" McConnell asked, smiling. "No. I just don't want to dirty my own knife." He plunged the short blade into Gene's abdomen, just below the ribs and twisted. Gene grunted in pain as blood ran down his leg.
"Have a change of mind?" McConnel asked.
Gene gasped. "Deeper. Push it deeper, bitch, I can barely feel it!"
McConnell's eyes went wide and he stepped back, leaving the blade in Gene's belly. "You're a madman. A raving madman." He turned and took another step away. "But I'm mad as well. You know this will continue. You choose what ye want done to yourself. Look at the tools in this room. You'll be tortured by one of them. You choose."
Gene looked around the room, sweat stinging his eyes. He looked at a table in the corner. "Skin me," he said. "See how I'll wear your mark, then."
***
Alice awoke to pain in her wrists and ankles and stiffness in her back. Her face felt warm and overly dry. She tentatively opened her eyes.
"Malachi?" she said.
"He can't hear you right now, Mrs. Pembleton. He's...sleeping."
Alice's vision came into focus and she saw the Cardinal sitting at his throne. They were again in the main chamber of McConnell Keep.
She was shackled by the hands and feet to an upended table in the middle of the room. She saw a green glow on the floor just behind her.
"What is that? Where's Malachi?" she asked.
The Cardinal smiled. "That is Malachi. The boy is in a stasis field. He may awaken soon. He's much too powerful to be restrained conventionally."
"You have no idea," Alice said. "Where's my husband?"
"In another part of the Keep, preparing for induction to the Clan and our Order. We expect you and your son to be joining us as well. You're sterling candidates, and would benefit greatly from membership."
Alice tilted her head back to adjust her glasses on her nose. "Why do I doubt that? We wouldn't join you any more than my husband would."
"Oh, but he did," The Cardinal mocked. "And you will." He turned to a robed aide. "Roger, the irons."
Alice heard a shifting behind her. "Mom?"
"Right here, baby."
"Where's Dad?"
"We don't know. Here somewhere."
The Cardinal rose from his chair and descended to the floor again. He approached Alice and spoke to her in a soft voice.
"Mrs. Pembleton...Alice. I must ask you to be reasonable. WE are not bad men. There are other women among us. Women who could be your friends. And the boy would have more friends, too. More family."
"We're fine with the family we've got, thanks. I came from a sick family, I don't need another one."
The Cardinal smiled. "You must understand. I spent many years as an Inquisitor. I know many, many ways to change one's mind. I find that women may have a higher threshold for pain, but they are also so much more vulnerable to it. It's so easy to harm a woman. You don't really want that, do you?"
A soft thud was heard in the chamber, then a muffled scream. The Cardinal turned his head for a moment and all three listened as clanging was heard in the outer hallway.
"Mom?" Malachi began.
Alice began to smile. "Don't worry, dear. It's your father." She nodded to the Cardinal. "Make peace with your god, Father. 'Nathan' will not be pleased."
Alice saw the Cardinal began to sweat very slightly, and his pulse visibly beat in his jugular vein. "I will attend to this commotion. Please excuse me," he said, walking quickly away. "Guards! No one but me is to cross the threshold to this chamber!"
When the Cardinal was gone, Alice spoke quietly.
"Malachi, I want you to try to tap into your power. Stretch out with it. See if you can test the strength of the field you're in. Push against it, see if it will give."
"I've been trying, Mom. When I push, the field pushes back."
Another scream echoed in the hall and the doors at the far side of the chamber burst open. Gene staggered in and fell on the floor, then stood. He was naked, and covered in burns and blood. His scalp was partially peeled back from his skull, and a crossbow bolt was run through his shoulder. The skin of his right bicep was completely missing, as was the skin of his wrists. He held a bloody axe in one hand and a short sword in the other. He stood at the front of the chamber, staring at Alice and Malachi and swaying. Then he arched his back, opened his mouth wide and howled.
Alice felt her temper flare. Her blood rose to her cheeks and ears and her hair felt as if it might stand on end. "Good Lord, look what they've done to him."
"Dad?" Malachi said.
Gene shook his head, looked at them, moved his mouth, then shook his head again. He began to approach them, holding the weapons before him.
"Hon?" Alice said. "Come on, you're with us. We love you. Talk to us, baby."
Gene stood alongside Alice and raised the sword. He brought it down under the iron ring that was linked to Alice's shackles and used it to wrench the ring right out of the table. He then repeated the procedure by her feet. He looked at her, then looked around the room. Two guards with pikes ran in through the open door.
Gene snarled and threw the axe, hitting one guard in the face before he'd made it another step. He then ran across the room and dodged to the side as the guard lunged with the pike. Gene grabbed the shaft of the pike and pulled, simultaneously kicking the guard in the chest. The man staggered backward, losing his grip on the weapon, and fell against the wall. Gene rushed forward and grabbed him, then turned and threw him onto the room's main table. The man bounced off the top and hit the floor with a thud just as Gene jumped and landed on his chest.
Alice couldn't watch what happened next. She saw Gene begin to rain a flurry of punches into the man's face before she turned away. After a moment, she heard the punches and Gene's howling stop and she looked again, only to see Gene biting out the man's throat with his own teeth. Alice shrieked.
"Stop! Stop! He's dead! Stop!"
Gene turned and spat out a mouthful of blood. He dropped the man and walked toward Alice, panting. He swallowed hard and with great effort, spoke.
"Ring shut down. Find core mages, we free ring and MAlachi. Cardinal must be dead."
Alice looked at him and smiled nervously. "Are you okay?"
Gene stared at her. "No."
"Dad, I think I can feel them. They're in a room upstairs. There's six of them. THe six who came to find us."
Gene looked at Alice. "Be ready to go. I'll take care of them. Malachi - when your field drops, free your mother from the chains. Then the two of you get out of here. Forget me. The ring will be working and I'll meet you at home."
"Can you handle them all?" Alice asked.
Gene nodded slightly. "I've thinned them already. With the ring, they'll be gone in moments." He turned and began to jog from the room.
"Wait!" Alice called out.
Gene stopped and turned.
"Don't you want some pants?"
Gene eyed the corpse on the other side of the room. "Not from him."
***
Minutes later, there was a loud crash and Malachi's stasis field dropped. Without saying a word, MAlachi stood and pointed at his mother's shackles and they dropped away. Alice grabbed the fallen man's pike and they ran out into the hall, where Malachi grabbed a sword from another dead man.
"The stairs are this way!" Malachi said, tugging his mother to the right.
"We're not leaving without him this time. Let's go."
She led them down the hall and to another flight of stairs going up. Dead were littered everywhere, most of them with wounds to the face, neck or chest, others with broken necks or backs. At the top of the stairs were two doors, both ajar. Alice pushed open one and found the six robed men in a small room, sitting on benches. The one closest to the door was slumped over with a crossbow bolt through the head. The others all seemed to have just spontaneously died.
"Dad!" Malachi called, opening the other door.
"No!" Alice yelled, shoving Malachi aside. She peered in the room and gasped.
The room was a torture chamber. Bloody tools lay scattered across a table while a fire still smoldered in a brazierre and in the fireplace. The flesh of Gene's shoulder and wrists was tacked to a board, as if to cure or dry. But more gruesome still was the room's center display - Aidan McConnell hung in the middle of the room, his guts spilled across the floor. His face had been carved off and his mouth stuffed with his own severed fingers. It was apparent to Alice how he had died. He was hanging from a noose made of his own intestines, tied to a chain linked high above.
"My God," Alice whispered. "My dear God."
"Mom, what is it?" MAlachi asked, trying to edge past her.
Alice shoved him back. "Nothing. Let's go."
A flash of light came in through a window by the stairs and a loud explosion crashed from outside. Alice and Malachi ran to the window, then ran out of the Keep as quickly as they could.
OUtside, Gene and the Cardinal were at war. Each was coated in energy - Gene in golden fire, the CArdinal in blaze orange. The Cardinal fired a cannon-like blast of energy at Gene, who blocked it with a fiery shield, then redirected a spear-like blast at the Cardinal.
The blast deflected off the Cardinal's own shield, then exploded into a hundred tiny missiles that shot around the shield and knocked the Cardinal from the sky. As he hit the ground, Gene formed a gigantic wedge of energy and brought it down on the Cardinal. A blue glow shot up into the night and Gene surrounded it with a bubble of flame!
"Shaman!" Gene screamed. "Shaman! Come help me!"
The blue energy shifted, twisted, expanded and contracted within Gene's bubble. Finally, it pulled together and then burst forth quickly, erupting from the bubble. Gene collapsed to the ground.
Alice and Malachi ran to him. "Gene!" Alice cried. She gently lifted his head. "Malachi," she said. "Remember everything you've learned and teleport us out of here. Take us home NOW."
End Part 8
Gene
Original and Longest-Running Editor
White Bastard/King's Pawn--HellFire Club
Knight of the Long-Necked Bottle
Forbidden by Law to Eat Onion Rings
Selectively Sterile
Wielder of Unbridled Contempt for Humanity
Clearest Colon this side of the Milky Way
Messiest Underwear this side of the Milky Way
Certified Bastard-Training Specialist
K, your neck is looking overloaded... Let me take some weight off it!