Angel of Death: Book One of the Chosen Chronicles (78 page)

Blackened patches of skin sloughed down his face to land in the straw, leaving glistening red skin and blood filled blisters in its wake. Jeanie could only watch, numb to the horror except for the rising nausea. Fernando’s words echoed in her head, springing forth tears and she knew the truth of them.

“He’s still alive,” she muttered, unable to glance up at Fernando‘s slowly healing form.

“What?” Surprise flushed through the Noble only to be quickly quenched. “How do you know this?”

“I overheard Violet.” Slowly she regained her feet, but still could not bring herself to look at Fernando.

“Ah yes. You’re friend from the Inn,” sneered the Noble.

Jeanie stared dumbfounded at Fernando.

“You think I didn’t know.” Fernando took a shaking step towards her. Charred muscle rustled like dry leaves. “She sent us to find you at the soup kitchen. She was all worried about you. Little did I know you were just part of the plan to entrap us and destroy us.”

Eyes wide, Jeanie could only shake her head in defiance. What if the Angel believed the same? Swallowing her fear she found something else in its place - anger. Furious at the betrayal by her false friend and her complete naiveté and she lashed out

“Ye stupid git,” she yelled. “D’ye think I’d bed the Angel just to see him kilt? What a sorry existence ye’ve had. I was snatched while out for a walk. Violet was my friend. I trusted her and she turned out to be a monster!”

The horses whinnied and pounded against their boards as Jeanie’s voice faded from the stables. Silence fell between the two as Jeanie attempted to get her anger under control.

“When I heard ye’d been kilt I actually was sorry,” she whispered, brushing away her tears. “When I realized ye were still alive I was happy. Now ye just disgust me.”

The bold truth of the girl’s words rocked Fernando to the core. It was not what he expected from her or from anyone for that matter. His own anger diminished with the realization that she was just as much a victim of Violet’s, if not more so. For the first time in a very long time, Fernando felt compassion and shame. He glanced up to see her figure turn towards the open stable doors.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, his eyes squinted with the light silhouetting her form.

“Back to the monastery.” Jeanie stepped out into the sun, watching the villa for any signs that her escape had been detected. She felt safe in the warming rays, knowing she was beyond Fernando’s grasp. She would never allow herself to be a pawn of his or anyone else’s again.

The thought of being trapped in the stable, awaiting discovery, filled the Noble with panic. He knew full well he did not have the strength to fight against whatever numbers the Mistress of Le Jardin threw at him, no matter how many horses he consumed. He had escaped the Sun Room, but had not planned on how to leave the property now the sun was fully up.

“Wait,” he called out. The idea he was dependent upon this mortal girl for his escape galled him.

Jeanie turned at the call and took in the ragged and wounded form of the once Noble Fernando de Sagres standing well within the shadows of the structure.

They stared at each other, waiting for the other to speak.

Fernando broke first. “You said the Angel was still alive.”

“Aye, I did.” Jeanie stepped closer, still standing outside.

“And you’re just planning on leaving?”

She did not know if Fernando could shock her further until now. “Ye just dinna get it, d’ye?”

Fernando bristled and attempted to straighten his burnt back.

“I’m goin’ back to the monastery to get help to free the Angel.” Jeanie’s eyes flashed threateningly and then she smiled. Help was standing right in front of her
if
she could find a way to make him do it.

Fernando barked a laugh. “You think that a handful of musty old monks can free the Angel? You don’t even know what you are fighting against.”

“Oh but I do, Fernando.” Jeanie stepped into the darkness and realized he could hardly see her when his eyes did not focus properly. She found the card and held it close.

“What?” He could not believe what he heard and stepped back from the girl. The bloodscent sent tremors through him and he knew he had to feed again, and soon. “You’re lying.”

“I am not,” she affirmed.
 

Surprised at her conviction, Fernando glared. “Then tell me.”

She wanted to whoop and holler at catching the Noble in his manipulative trap. He seemed in such poor form that she was almost sorry to take advantage of him, but it was the only way. “I’ll tell ye
after
ye help me free the Angel.”

Clicking his jaw shut, Fernando shook his head. “I can live without that knowledge.”

Jeanie blinked in disbelief. She had not counted on him calling her bluff. Chewing on her bottom lip, she found what she needed to up the ante. “I’ll get ye to the monastery too.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” he scoffed. “A nice stroll in the sun would limit my usefulness in obtaining the Angel.”

“There’s a covered wagon beside the stable. I used to drive carts with my da. I ken how to hitch them too. Add a couple of horse blankets and ye‘ll be fine.”

Slowly, Fernando nodded, agreeing to the terms. It was his only way. “If you get me back to the monastery and allow me time to heal, we’ll go back to get your precious Angel. Then you’ll tell me who or what is behind the poisoning of the Chosen.”

“Deal.” stated Jeanie, sticking out her hand and instantly regretted the action. Crisped flesh slid in her touch, creating cracks that oozed red and yellow gore. It took all her resolve not to vomit.

Fernando took her hand in his scorched and blackened one. “Deal.” He let her pull away faster than he would have liked, but still he admired her fortitude even as she wiped his burnt and suppurating flesh from her hand onto her skirt. “One other thing.”

“What?” snapped Jeanie, halting in her progress of cleaning her hand. She checked between her fingers and grimaced.

“Pick your two horses for the job,” smiled the Noble, his face ghastly as more skin sloughed off. “The others are mine.”

Jeanie sighed at the necessity of what was to become of the poor beasts and nodded.

“
I
t is the attachments in one’s life that suffering is created. The
pain our bodies create is just one such visceral attachment. Detachment from one’s expectations of sensation will cause pain to cease, allowing one to transcend physical perceived reality.”

“What about pleasure?”

“So to with all forms of attachment, whether it be of the physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. Through detachment comes transcendence.”

The words of his first Master rang through his mind as if he and the monk were sitting in his dimly lit cell. Of course that was impossible. Master Tsang was over seven hundred years dead. Yet the substance of the words rang true more so now as he hung from the iron shackles.

He could no longer feel his hands. The last time he ventured a glance, they were blackened and swollen, the iron band cutting and smouldering into his inflamed wrists. The smell of his burning flesh mingled with the soot the grease torch released.

Mouth parched, he tried to swallow and felt his dry lips crack. He was on fire from the iron borne infection and he knew that what he heard was not what she had said.

Time had lost meaning in the torture the Lady of
Le Jardin
exacted upon him, yet some part of him knew that what seemed to be nights of torture were only several hours.

He vaguely recalled her storming down the stone steps and taking up the serrated knife. It was difficult to recall when there was a time when that bloodied blade was not part of her hand, and somewhere in his fevered mind he believed that the knife was her hand.

With meticulous care and a surgeon‘s skill, she carved into his body, following previously treaded paths. First came the chest wound. Sizzling meat and blood wafted up causing him to retch and incurring her wrath when he refused to answer her questions. Then she traced the ancient scar on his arm, opening it up in a slow mockery of the single slash that had first rended his flesh and exposed his deadly differences.

He had turned his head away from the flicking of her cold tongue to lap at any blood that oozed from the burnt flesh, ashamed that the coldness gave some relief. Still he refused to reply.

With each passing of the blade as it dug deeper, the questions repeated, slicing muscle fibre from muscle fibre in a cautery that added to his agony until the words became a mantra, whispered into the flesh as she consumed him.

“Where is she? Where did she go? What is she going to do? If you tell me I will stop.”

He refused to believe her even though his body cried out for him to relinquish the knowledge so as to be freed from the torture.

Through the Lady’s fury and constant repetition he knew that somehow Jeanie had escaped, eluding recapture. He silently repeated each question, clinging to them in the hope they provided as his body was riddled in unrelenting agony. His voice broken from screaming, a part of him was grateful that he could barely utter a word otherwise he would have answered the Mistress long ago. Anything to make her stop, to ease the pain if only for a little before she would find another reason to pick up the knife and begin her work anew.

Another presence entered the chamber, cutting off the litany, bringing a momentary respite from her slicing attention. He released a sob at the sudden relief before a frustrated scream shattered the silence that turned his gut into a knot, sending shudders along his body.

A new mantra began as she stabbed into the scar on his leg, carving the old wound open in one easy stroke. The jarring of blade against bone sent him swinging on the chains.

Through his cries he heard the words repeated again and again as she worked the knife. “Where is de Sagres? Where are they hiding?”

Gasping, his eyes closed, he could feel the cold touch of the white-faced demons beckoning him into their embrace. Their torture would be a release from the suffering he endured and he opened his eyes.

The Lady’s contorted face looked up to meet him. The inferno that raged through him blurred his vision. She could do anything to his body, but he would escape, he realized, and she would never find him. No one would ever find him again. Not Jeanie. Not Notus. Not Fernando. They would be free while he fled into the awaiting arms of the demons. It was his choice. He accepted it.

“Why are you smiling?” snapped
Le Jardin’s
ruler. She lifted the gore-besmeared blade to his face and held it there.

“You‘ve lost,” he rasped, not knowing nor caring where the words came from. They stole his breath away and he closed his eyes, the tug from the demons more insistent. It would be his choice that he would endure. The known tortures of the demons were preferable to the unknown devices she had yet to put into action.

He groaned as he felt his head snap back.

“What are you talking about? I never lose.” The Mistress’ fetid breath raised his gorge.

His breath came in quick gasps as she sawed her way along the knotted scar on his leg, each pass sending spasms through his body as she repeated her newest questions. Over and over the new mantra sounded in an effort to force the answers from his torn and burnt flesh. It was when he realized that the questions had stopped, halting the blade’s motion, that he opened his eyes.

The Lady of
Le Jardin
stood at the implements hanging on the wall. Carefully, she placed the bloodied blade on the small table against the stone and picked up something else.