Debtor's War

I wiped my tears away angrily with the back of my hand but they didn't stop. I would go back to Enzo. I would use my head and stop moping around in the fucking privy. Six months of experience with him was enough. I would give him reasons not to strangle me to death.

The whole structure resonated as a fist hammered on the door.

"Fuck off." I croaked.

"Open the door." Of course it was him.

I didn't want to. I wished the ground would swallow me up.

"I'm nearly finished."

"Please. I know you're crying, just... please open the door."

As soon as I unlatched it, Enzo pulled it open himself. Scooped me up into his arms and held me tight.

"I'm so fucking sorry," he breathed into my hair, "I swear to god I didn't mean to hurt you."

I couldn't speak, words just wouldn't come. Of course he meant to hurt me. Every night. I let myself fall limp in his arms.

"I thought you'd gone." He was almost crying. How fucking dare he!

I reached up to return his embrace and that's when he sobbed. Bastard. I squeezed him back. "Where else would I go, you horse's arse?"

He scooped me up in his arms like he did the first night he claimed me. What had Radu said? Enzo would send me away on a fool's errand but something important would happen tonight. It wasn't so late though; the bell tolled the hour of six as we reached the bedroom. I was shaking as he put me on the bed. He sat beside me. I noticed his clothes were only half fastened, his boots unbuckled.

"Are there things..." I hesitated. I put my little hand over his fist. "I feel like there are things you can't say. Master?"

He looked down at me. I'd never seen a man so vulnerable, a man with his heart this open. I could hope.

"I thought I'd killed you."

"You almost did..." my heart was hammering away at the memory of it.

"I will." His voice broke. "If we carry on like this."

"Don't tell me you didn't mean it."

He closed his mouth. He took my hand and met my eyes as I continued.

"I do NOT mind the pain, I gladly live with it because you need me to. You know that, right? Look!" I pulled down my soft breeches and winced as they caught his marks. "I'm not ashamed. I'm proud to belong to you." The tears were coming again and I couldn't help it. "But I don't want to die."

"The devil gets into me." He brushed his fingers along the welts his belt buckle made on the lips of my cunt. "I don't know how to stop."

"Enzo?"

He looked me in the eye again. My foolish heart skipped a beat. I reached up and brushed my fingertips against his lips. "Kiss me?"

I lay back on the blanket, offering myself to his mercy. He pulled down my breeches all the way to my ankles and I spread my knees almost back against the bed just as I had when he'd belted me. I grunted as he easily slid his fingers all the way into my cunt, rested his thumb on my wounded clit. I gasped in surprise as his mouth latched on to the welts on my thigh.

He fucked his knuckles in and out, and though I was slick with blood and arousal, my pulled flesh screamed in protest. I forced my knees open wider and unfastened the laces of my shirt, teasing my nipples. His teeth cut into the buckle marks on my thigh and I pressed a finger between my teeth. I let my breath out in one long hiss that ended in a whimper.

My skin flushed pink as his pace picked up. The folds of my open body welcomed this violation with slick sounds of him building up my juices. He suckled the open wound and made it bigger, worrying the raw edge of it with his tongue. I deserved my perdition, because I had no natural disgust for this act at all.

He wanted me quiet and completely submissive, a living puppet on his hand. My cunt matched my own small size, I always bled when he fisted me there. I always felt him grinding against my bones, begged him to stop, but not this time.

He filled me as deep as my sex could take, four fingers wriggling inside, his thumb on my aching pearl, stroking, circling, even when my climax rolled through my body he did not bully his thumb in and tear me but stilled himself. Savouring the spasms of my euphoria. As he mauled my thigh I stroked his hair. I wriggled a foot out of my boot and bunched up leggings and fumbled between his legs with my toes.

He laughed and shifted his attention to my oversensitive clit, glazing it in blood and saliva with his gentle tongue. I arched my back as he began to suckle.

"Oh, master! Oh god!" I wailed.

I almost didn't mind the wet finger that slid up my arse. Almost.

My cries of euphoria shifted to something darker as I turned onto my belly, resigned to my fate.

"That's my girl," he sighed as he ignored my hungry cunt and sheathed himself as he pleased. "Now tell me how you don't mind the pain, little slut."

"Ungh!" I whimpered as he thrust deep up my bottom and stayed there. "I will take it, master. For you, always. But please make haste." Tears dropped steadily from my lashes onto the blanket.

"You fucking hate me, don't you, slut?" He slapped my rump for good measure.

I folded my hands on the blanket and braced my forehead against my clenched fists. Fighting a wave of nausea I splayed my ankles wider and ground back against him. "No!"

"Liar." Fuck, he was hard. Merciless as he skewered me. He built up his momentum, powering into me as I whimpered in time with his swinging balls. "Tell me what you feel, right now."

"I'm a disgusting piece of shit, so ugly and skinny, you treat me like a filthy cunt because I am a filthy cunt. And... and..."

Slap, slap, slap he fucked.

"I hate myself," I wept, "I need you, I love you, Enzo, my master, please..."

He came deep inside me, we collapsed forward onto the bed. I hadn't come, but i felt such deep satisfaction knowing I was enough. Though my body was weak and imperfect, it was enough for him.

Time passed.

Pressed between him and the mattress, I could barely breathe but the rest of the world didn't exist.

A knock on the door at eight brought us round. Enzo's prick slipped out of me as he turned aside.

"Thank you!" He shouted. He pulled his clothes back up with a little sigh. "Sparrow?" he said more gently. "Stay here tonight. You haven't slept."

I sat up and shook my head. I took a long painful swig of water from the jug on the nightstand and splashed some on my face. There was no running away from what we'd started.

"I'm not lying back and tickling my cunt while the Turks attack and that's final."

He laughed aloud at that. A clean laugh, no sarcasm, no mocking.

He made his way around to me and kissed me. Long and deep, not his usual mouth fuck either. Sweet.

I prayed Radu was right.

"I need to be with you," I said. "Fight and die with you. It's our only chance of a happy ending together, Enzo?"

"Tonight..." he breathed, uncertain.

I put my finger on his lips. "Tonight. And I know something's bothering you. I know you have your secrets. But there's nowhere I won't go, nothing I won't do..."

His eyes changed, fearful and uncertain. "I'm more of a slave than you are. The things I have to do, my love. The things I've done..."

"Trust me, master. I would sooner be with you."

He made up his mind. I held my breath.

He rummaged in his kit bag and brought out a familiar looking silk bundle. I opened it out on the bed. Like the mask Radu had given me, it had a black hood attached, but it was not porcelain. It was a crude wooden oval shape with small eye holes. It was covered on the outside with black felt, on the inside it was still raw pine. There was a wedge of wood where the mouth should be.

"This is a moretta. While you wear it, you are my shadow, and I wear this." He drew out his own weeping half mask. "There will be many others. We are called watchers or defenders depending who you ask. Beware anyone without a mask. I mean it, Sparrow. Stay within arm's reach of me if you can, if something happens to me pick another watcher and stick to them until morning. Show me."

I knelt at his feet. He stripped off the remainder of my scouts clothes and draped a sheer black robe over me. It had obscene slits up the back and sides, as soon as I walked everything would be on show. If I lay back, my wounded tits would immediately be displayed. It was worse than being naked. I could feel my pussy soaking my bare thighs already, imagining. Then he hooded me and put the wooden bit of the moretta between my teeth. I moaned softly. It smelled of raw pine and animal glue, musky too like someone else had worn it. Of course they had.

"Give it to me." He said, stroking my nipples between the folds of fabric. On my hands and knees my backside presented itself, naked and battered, from between the silken robes. He didn't fuck me again. He worked me open with his fingers and lubed me up with sweet almond oil. Then he slipped a wide wooden plug up into me. I pressed my eyes shut and accepted it. When I straightened back up to kneel I could feel something stroking against the backs of my thighs.

"Mmph?" I stared at him through the eye holes as he prepared himself.

The grim set returned to his jaw, the tension to his body. "We're going to church. You stay close to me, you say nothing to anyone. Recognise someone? Irrelevant, keep your focus on your master, eyes on my feet. I stop walking, you kneel. I kneel or sit, you grovel."

He put on a full black robe to cover his clothes and armour. With the mask on top he looked like something out of a crazy dream.

My knees ached from the wooden floor, when I squirmed the strands dangling from my arse tickled my legs. "Up then. Good girl."

I clung to his arm, praying this wasn't a huge mistake. He hushed me, pulled a heavy hooded cloak over my whorish costume. Barefoot I padded after him on the cobbled street. He kept his arm around me and steered me away from the filthy gutter. Was this it? I wondered. The last night of my life? Was this the choice Radu had warned me about, had I made the wrong one?

"You're so scared," Enzo said. "It's not too late to go back."

I squeezed his hand and shook my head. Part of my unease came from walking through the streets like this. The curfew was in place, wearing a disguise in a public place was a flogging offence. There was a tail up my fucking arse for god's sake. If the guards caught us you could bet they'd do a number on me.

The church he took me to is long lost to time. An ugly medieval building with no bell or steeple. Part of it was made from Roman brick work, perhaps it had been a temple or fortress even then. It was nominally dedicated to the sacred heart, and was attached to a small convent of Spanish nuns.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I stepped from a cool autumn evening into a world of darkness that I have never escaped.

Just inside the doorway were three naked people with crude open weave sack cloth tied around their heads. Enzo stopped so I knelt. Two women came and washed my feet and calves, a man rubbed down Enzo's boots. Our outer cloaks were removed. I tried not to stare at the breasts swaying before my eyes as they worked.

In the shadows, almost out of sight, was another person wearing a bone white mask of a skull like design. He had a wide brimmed tricorn hat, like you'd imagine a highwayman would wear. His black robes glistened with gold thread and paste jewelry. The figure nodded to Enzo as he made his way into the church.

I scrambled after my master, hanging on his arm but he didn't shrug me off. I tried to concentrate on Enzo alone, his feet on the mosaic tiles.

Other watchers were already here. There was little you could tell from footwear and the hems of trousers and skirts. There was another moretta following behind one of them, a well built older man whose robes were just as revealing as mine. He followed a woman, that much I could tell, she made him crawl beside her.

Enzo rested a hand on my head as I knelt. "I don't want you crawling and begging." I leaned into his affectionate petting. What was happening to me? What was this place?

The altar screen was more ornate than you'd expect for a little church. The scenes on it were unfamiliar. A seven headed dragon with water pouring from its mouth, a beautiful woman with eagle's wings. As I looked at the shape of the stone carving above us I couldn't help seeing the shape of a huge pudenda complete with clitoris above the dragon's horns. I suppose it could be a heart. Enzo cleared his throat and I snapped my head down contritely. The mosaic tiles on the floor were vivid blue, scattered with metallic stars.

The sound of a group of girls giggling drifted in from the streets. "Here we go," Enzo said. He and a couple of other men moved towards the door.

Two noble women and a nun arrived, gossipping as though it were Sunday morning at St Steven's.

They baulked at the masked men and naked servants, but the heavy doors closed behind them with a dull thud. The three servers who had washed our feet did the same for these newcomers. Was it politeness that made the women compliant? Didn't they feel the danger? The giggling had stopped once their cloaks and shoes were spirited away. The taller noble with a silver coronet in her hair spoke.

"Sirs. We have simply come to be shriven."

The smaller woman tittered and the nun glared at her before adding, "Father is expecting us."

"Indeed." The figure in the skull mask stepped forward. He clapped his hands. I watched in horror as the defenders overpowered the trio, tearing off their remaining clothes, stripping them of all dignity and finery until they knelt, naked and weeping in the freezing entryway of the church. They begged for mercy but there was none.

Their beautiful faces and bedraggled hair were completely covered with sackcloth and rope. Their arms were forced back and restrained with the same harsh bonds, and they squealed as the sharp fibres bit into their pampered limbs. Even as they howled in helpless misery, beautiful singing began behind the altar screen.

I didn't understand the words. In this bizarre nightmare, I continued to kneel, biting my wooden bit, bearing silent witness as the three were humiliated. It was a pitiful sight.

The taller noble and the nun submitted quietly in shame, the one who'd giggled before screamed the whole time, "Ow! Help! You wicked devils! Oh! You're killing me!" On and on she babbled until the men mocked her words.

"Save that one for last." The man in the shadows said.

"Signore." Enzo bowed deeply as he replied.

The female servants covered the three with pure white robes. They roped them together by the neck, the nun in the middle, the screamer at the back. One of the men picked up the fallen coronet and jammed it down hard on the first woman's head. She faltered, almost fell.

"Oh have mercy," she wept.

My eyes blurred with tears as I followed Enzo into the chapel.

There was an unmasked woman standing before the altar screen. She wasn't classically beautiful, more Rubenesque, no sharp edges at all, ironic considering her tastes. The light of the candles softly illuminated the beatific expression of sadism on that bitch's face, shimmered on her fine golden robes and slippers. Kneeling at her feet was a priest. I walked behind Enzo as he frogmarched the last woman to her fate.

You don't want to know what the Lady did to the sacrifices. Would it be enough to tell you that her own pride will undo her? Perhaps not. If you need blood, there are ways to get it without destroying your humanity. Only a rotten soul could orchestrate something so profane.

Having gorged herself on the blood of innocents, the creature cut stigmata into her own wrists, and filled a golden chalice with her black blood. One by one the entire congregation came to sip there.

Throughout that black mass I struggled to keep my focus on Enzo. He gazed at his Lady in adoration despite what he'd seen her do. The bodies still lay as they had fallen, broken toys discarded. It has been so very long, I sometimes wish I could forget such details, but that is not in my gift. I remember every desperate scream, every futile supplication even now. Those three unfortunate women, and every victim since.

The priest began droning on, some sermon about god's chosen defenders defeating the fiends from the east. At first there was a chittering scratching sound. Then came rats. Hundreds of fucking rats poured from the shadows and dismantled the women's staring corpses, squabbling over their steaming tripe and carrying off their bones. The vast room began to spin. I put my forehead to the floor and prayed that this was all an unholy nightmare.

Some sudden movement brought me crashing back to reality.

"Is this bitch asleep?" The service was over, no more rats either. The first thing I saw was a pair of golden slippered feet. I gripped the mask in my teeth and tried to calm my breathing. I closed my eyes tight and clenched my mouth shut to suppress the wave of nausea.

A gloved hand grabbed my hair and wrenched me up to kneeling, twisted my head to one side, then the other and tore the mask from my face. A hot trickle of blood ran down my chin as the wooden bit split my lip and I literally pissed myself in terror. Perhaps I'd die of fright like a field mouse in a cat's mouth. Her eyes were utterly soulless. I could feel the crushing weight of her will, pressing her mark onto the fabric of my mind.

"Well, hello there, pretty," the woman purred. She caught her glove between her teeth and drew it off in one practiced motion. Before it hit the ground she picked up the trail of my blood on her finger and shamelessly licked it clean. She rested it chill and damp on my lips. My whole body was vibrating in utter terror but I did not dare make a sound. I could see her vicious fangs, so recently blooded by three innocent victims. She smiled down at me and lifted her bodice, exposing her silvery white breast

I barely heard her speak. "I prefer your face to your arse. Suck."

Her ice cold teat was in my mouth at once. Her command was like the voice of God to my mortal will. My eyes fluttered and I almost came as I suckled. Vitae is power. Pure, physical power. I had no idea what vitae was, what ghouldom was, what the blood bond was, that didn't hold me back. At once I felt power flooding my veins, a profound rage in my heart, to say nothing of the febrile lust I felt with my lips on her skin.

"Little baby moretta," she cooed as she stroked my cheek, "heal your wounds." I had no choice. Tears of wonder fell as I obeyed, the skin tingled as lacerations faded from my face and body. Another wave of terror washed over me. Why would the devil heal me if not to torment me again? Or worse?

"Clever. Little. Thing." She tapped her icy finger on my nose with each word. Fuck. Where was Enzo? "Enough. No time for games." She snapped her fingers and the nearest defender picked up her glove and slid it reverently back onto her arm. "Come, walk bitch, keep to heel." Hand still caught in my hair she began to walk. I struggled to keep pace as she marched, pulling her intricate bodice back into place.

I had an absurd worry that my mask was gone, so was my master, and with them any hope of anonymity and protection.

"We're going to the West gate, Ivan," the Lady called. "Happy hunting."

I couldn't see who she'd spoken to. Jogging alongside her in my semi upright position I tired quickly.

She stopped and stroked my cheek. I stared down at the cobbles. I was utterly in her power, this creature, this devil. "You catch your breath, catch your death.... Elizabeth."

I looked at her then on instinct. "Are you frightened, queer little thing?" Her eyes were dark blue, deep as a stormy sky. Every time she said my name a jolt ran right through me like lightening. "Dolce moretta Elizabetta."

"Oh!" I shivered as she thumbed my newly restored teat gently. I imagined her tearing it off with that sadistic smile of hers.