Page 82 of Besieger
He opened his hand and let Vasili drop to the ground.
“How are you liking our new friend?”
He did not wait for an answer, turning towards Stefan who could not force himself upward, even if he wanted to. His legs, whatever they had done to them, continued to throb in pain, the aches had spread from his ankles to his knees.
“My pups told me what you did, how you tried to save the girl.” The leader kneeled in front of Stefan, looking him up and down.
Excluding the eerie eyes, the man looked like the sort of brutes Stefan’s bullies would one day grow up to be. Whatever sympathy and humility this man had once possessed, had been shed long before he descended into the basement. His hair was cropped short, like a dark shadow framing his skull. In a crowd of other men he would be indistinguishable, one among many, a byproduct of mass consumption and numb contempt.
“I applaud bravery and gallantry,” the leader added in his low voice, a vile hiss against Stefan’s face. His breath reeked of rot, as if he had gouged himself on something foul. “But you see, I promised her to my pups. My pups, they…” Here he stopped to lick his lips, searching for the right words. “… they are a lost cult, a leaderless one. And that girl you so ardently tried to save, will give them what they are due. She will birth them a god.”
Stefan looked over the man’s shoulder at Vasili. His fellow captive appeared to be as bewildered as Stefan was, his formerresolve cracking, his eyes wide, the warning too late for the offense Stefan had unwittingly committed. A hand clasped over his face, screwing it forward, blinding him. Long fingers dug in and clenched.
“Do you know how hard it was to track her?” the leader hissed, his nails pierced Stefan’s skin and began to tear. “If you want her so badly, you can have her. I will even let you join my pack and wait for your turn…if you do not break before the next moon.”
The man before Stefan began to deform. His mouth split open in rows of crude, jagged teeth; the eyes now glowed with an animal’s ferocity and the hand holding him grew bigger, the palm wider, swallowing more of Stefan’s skull. Claws dug in deeper and raked at his forehead and eye, scraping downwards. The claws tore into the cheekbone, nose and jaw.
Stefan’s mouth filled with blood and the odd, warm ooze of what could only be his own eye. He gagged and wriggled in the leader’s clutches, trying to get away, his back against the wall, his broken legs dangling in their sick angle.
“Be a good pup and I will let you keep the rest of your face.” The leader chuckled, dropping Stefan in a quivering heap on the floor.
He did not bother locking the door on his way out. There was no point.
The flesh of his face burned with a rawness so intense it made Stefan retch. He could not open his left eye. His lids were caked with blood and dirt, and the more he struggled to blink through the torn tissue, the worse the pain grew. Blood and sweat mixed with the tears down his face. Every time he moved his mouth to speak and call for Vasili, the wounds along his lips split anewand bled. Sometime during the night, he had soiled himself; his clothes now wet and rancid.
Bodies moved around him. They unshackled and dragged him across the floor, his legs trailing behind him in the dirt. With each passing day his limbs felt less his own, but rather like some dead weight welded to his lower half.
“Krum,” an unfamiliar voice announced. The hands holding Stefan threw him forward.
The only thing Stefan could concentrate on was the taste of blood in his mouth. As long as there was still blood in him to flow and gag on, and for his mouth to taste the iron, Stefan knew he was still alive. There was still a part of him that was present and meant to survive.
“Our vixen does not know when to yield. Then again, those born with the gift never do.”
They had brought him to a different part of the maze. He knew they were still underground, as they had passed no staircases, only corridors, and had dragged him from his little cell to this new section. Passageways stretched on either side, with doors leading to other rooms—a labyrinth that, instead of frightening, confused him. They were in a basement of an apartment building. He recognised the rough wooden doors with their simple padlocks, flat numbers scrawled in chalk or smeared red paint, the lightbulbs draped in cobwebs. The area they were currently in was where people usually stored their old prams and bicycles.
We are in an abandoned building’s cellar...
The thought almost made Stefan burst out laughing, the hysteria threatening to bubble through his torn mouth. This cult was about to welcome their god in a place where the working class used to store their winter preserves, empty jars, homemade rakia[28] and items long forgotten which belonged to the trash.
The leader, Krum, seized Stefan by the hair and hauled him closer, forcing him upright. A makeshift rack was hammered tothe wall ahead, chains and leather belts holding a figure strapped to it. Stefan registered the short blond hair, the naked feet protruding from torn jeans and a female face gagged and bound to the wooden frame.
“Sooner or later she will shift,” Krum said. “Out of desperation or fatigue, or in an attempt to escape. And when she does, we will mate with her.”
The girl’s face crinkled in disgust behind the gag. The malice in her eyes made them shine in the faint yellow glow which all of them possessed. Were Stefan’s eyes also going to shine like that? There were no mirrors underground, his only canvas being Krum’s face when he looked down at Stefan, admiring his handiwork. Krum poked and jabbed at the wounds, the clawed hand going down Stefan’s throat and his grip tightened. He looked and felt more like a beast than a man, a mongrel unfit to stand on its hind legs.
“Your face will never heal, pup.” Krum grinned, brushing Stefan’s hair back. “I will make you unfit for human company. I will ruin you for men,” he promised, running his fingers over the torn flesh, admiring it.
Bile rose in Stefan’s throat. He wanted to push the man away, but his limbs felt too heavy, burning. His chest heaved for breath and every time he inhaled, the air was scorching and vile. Krum’s predator eyes bore into him not with curiosity or desire, but with the calculating coldness of an animal waiting to pounce on a weakened prey.
“Now, Irena, my elusive vixen.” Krum turned to the girl, still holding on to Stefan. “You can feel it, can’t you? The full moon rising? I know you can control yourself and shift when you like. Unlike him.” He lifted Stefan’s chin. “He most certainly cannot. Oh, I am sure you remember your first moon, giving over to the urge, to the hunger. Your parents must have taken you hunting in their villa, running after what small game skittered through the woods.”
Hands wrapped around Stefan and took him away from Krum and nearer to the chained girl. Men in rags, faces smeared with soot, placed him at her feet like an offering laid at an altar. They hauled a chain, bound it around Stefan’s swollen ankle, and left him there.
“The first time is exhilarating… freeing,” Krum kept talking, his tone riddled with sickening glee. “It is also painful and disorientating. Without someone to guide you, who knows what havoc you can wreak; on yourself and on the others.”
A single length of chain held Stefan in place. He followed it with his remaining eye and saw the iron link disappear in the many chains around Irena’s body. They might have tied him to the wall or to a chain linked with one of her limbs—there was no way to tell. All he knew was that in this position he could sit or crawl as far as the wall and rest his back. His arms were no longer hoisted at uncomfortable and weird angles. He was chained, but he could rest. He could try to sleep. Krum’s words were beginning to dissolve.
“You can break free of these restraints, my dear. You always could.” Krum smiled. “My pack demands I show respect to the mother of their god, and I have shown you care and obedience. But my patience wears thin. I hunger for my pack to roam free. So tonight, I will help you choose. Either shift and accept your role—or become food for those lesser than you.”
