Demon's Punish Ch. 03

Author's notes:

VE: Todger65. Much love! You give the magic form and the dreams substance.

Thank you dear readers for reading! It's why I bother to transform electrons to words instead of keeping them in my synapses to be lost.

Yes this is a cluster fuck of incomprehensibility. Yes it's all based on stuff I've been working through my brain for years now. Yes, it will make more sense, but it might not for quite some time. Yes, I'm an asshole for not posting this chapter sooner. This book is at about the half-way point, but who knows, maybe I'll drag it out a bit longer. Once it wraps up, we'll move on to another group of characters that will be interacting with these ones, sort of like how the Avenger movies work.

Now, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!

He gathered up Lavinia. Together they stumbled back through the room to the grand foyer and went outside. He yawned. Lavinia's tears had dried up to just a few occasional sniffles and hiccups. He found her car without needing to try. He just walked up to a car. It was her Tesla, and because neither of them felt like driving, he had the car do it.

Lavinia rested her head on Gideon's shoulder as they walked arm-in-arm up the driveway towards the door. Gideon had lost track of time, but the sun wasn't up yet. He wasn't surprised that all the lights were off in the house. He fished around in his pocket, wondering what his mom would think about brining a second girl to the house in less than a day. He was an adult and paid his way, but that thought wouldn't dislodge itself from his head. It was still there when he stuck the key into the door.

"I'm sorry all this happened," Lavinia said again, sighing and closing her eyes tight.

Gideon shrugged. "The kindred are a bunch of assholes. Don't blame yourself for their assholery." He pushed the door open.

His eyes adjusted fast to the darkness. His vision switched to gray scale, tinged with reds and purples. He saw the muzzle of the shotgun as lines of grey and the tip dripping red. Jake was holding it.

"Fuck you!" Jake roared, squeezing the trigger of the shotgun. A barrage of iron flechettes burst from the muzzle like a swarm of angry killer bees. The air buzzed with their explosive dive towards Gideon's face.

Jake?! Blinding light enveloped him. Gideon flinched. He should have grabbed Lavinia and pulled her in front of him. His greater self demanded it. He dove into Lavinia, knocking her out of the way.

A barrage of iron flechettes peppered the left half of his face, neck, and shoulder. His eyes and ears were saved by his arms, but the rest of his face was festooned with them. He could feel them poking through his cheek with his tongue.

"You want more you fucking bitch?" Jake cocked the shotgun. Someone moaned loud but muffled. There were some muttered whispers that Gideon couldn't make out.

Another flash of light, and he was pushed back by the impact of the iron darts riddling his chest and neck. Breathing hurt. Air escaped from holes in his neck. His skin sizzled around the iron like batter in a frying pan. The cold darkness had abandoned him. He felt static when he reached out for his dark essence. Not that there was anything left to use anyway.

"Alive, Jake. He needs to be alive." It was Bill's voice, Angie's uncle.

"Yeah fuck that. You saw what he's done."

Bill said, "Use the bats boys."

More people rushed forward. The bats were made of cold iron. They crushed bone and melted skin. He crumpled upon the ground, unable to even curl into a fetal position. The darkness came and swallowed him. He was back in that room. The walls were infinite planes of nothingness. He rested in the space between breaths. He sat, waiting in the time between waking and dreaming. He could hear nothing. The stillness extended to his other senses. There was nothing to smell or taste. Neither texture nor temperature disturbed his skin. He waited in that infinity of absence.

He waited.

And waited.

Again the place receded like dirt washed from a wall. Instead of the room, there was just the normal fuzzy static behind his closed eyes. A thousand pinpricks of burning acid where the iron flechettes still clung to his skin. Added to that, his wrists and ankles were bound tight in what had to be cold iron. His appendages were pulled in all opposite directions like he was about to be drawn and quartered. He was laying on something hard, which would have to be his oak dining table. It was the only real furniture in the house. New needles of pain were blossoming over his body. Someone was taking their time sticking more stuff into his body. His eyes were crusted closed with blood. His nose and mouth were filled with it.

"You killed him," Bill said.

"Mister Gideon do not be looking good, no sir," Manas said.

"Oh shut it," Jake said.

"Hush," an old crone said. "It be fine."

Someone shuffled around the room, and it must have been the old crone sticking more needles into his body. She stopped several minutes later. It gave Gideon some time to plan out his next steps. His lesser self was a mess of depression and despair. First two girls were killed in front of him, and now he was being tortured. He was going to die in his house. He didn't even want to know what they'd done to his mother or Lavinia.

Of course they'd use holy water to clean the blood from his eyes. It was like bathing in battery acid. He could smell his skin burning. Layers of skin sloughed off.

"Enough, enough." The old crone hacked something up and swallowed it back down. "It be all done."

"Okay," Bill said.

Gideon didn't see much point in pretending to be passed out. He didn't think he could last long in this state. Pulling his raw eyelids open hurt. His eyes burned from the holy water. He swallowed some of the blood in his mouth.

It was the old crone who spoke. He recognized her as the lady behind the counter at Le Coffre Au Tresor, the pawn shop Angie had taken him to. Of course that made sense. He'd been unable to enter the shop. Someone had placed a seal against his kind. He wasn't sure if the old crone was a free agent or a member of the troupe. He suspected she was a free agent. It cast Angie's time in the shop in a whole new light. Manas was there, but he shrunk back when Gideon's dark eyes fell on him. The rest of Angie's troupe was there including Bill the leader and shotgun wielding Jake. The two girls Angie had been with weren't present, so maybe they had been "props" after all. Jake had the shotgun leveled at his head. Several of the other troupe members held iron pipes at the ready.

"Ye be thrice bound. Iron. Salt. Blood." The old crone said, shambling around the table like the walking dead. He heard her hunched over body creak with each movement. Bones popped and cracked. Maybe she was a spirit bound into dead flesh. She looked like a witch, if a witch dressed in a black moo moo with a tattered shawl tied over her deflated breasts.

"How clever of you," Gideon said. His greater self came forward. His lesser self was curled in some corner of his being, shaking and crying. His voice sounded bored. He yawned, not letting the pain show in his eyes. He strangled a groan before it could escape. "I advise against hurting Lavinia, wherever she is."

"Shut your fucking mouth!" Jake said, rushing forward and jabbing the barrel of his shotgun deep into Gideon's cheek.

"Hush child," the old crone said.

Gideon had liked Manas. He smiled when he caught sight of Manas again, pacing back and forth shaking his head. "There's more of my mom's cooking in the fridge. Why don't you help yourself to it Manas?"

"None of that dearie." The old crone placed one crooked finger beneath his jaw and tilted it back towards her withered face. It was like her skin was melted over her skull. She looked way worse up close than through the window of Le Coffre.

"You aren't powerful enough." Gideon thought for a second. "So that would mean you are acting via proxy. That'd be Isabella." Gideon rolled his eyes. "Bill, I don't advise going through with it."

"What?" Bill had been looking up the stairs, wiping his brow.

"Shhh," the crone said, "Move those lips again, and I be sticking this lovely through 'em. Mhmmm." The crone produced a knitting needle. "Don't want none of that lovie. Naw no." She shook her head.

Gideon nodded. He could see his body was outlined in salt the color of dried blood. Something in the blood baked into the salt made him think it was a virgin's. In addition to the flechettes still riddling his body, he saw acupuncture needles placed along his meridian points. The needles traced the 12 main pathways and most of the inner ones too. She'd missed a few spots but not enough. So Gideon did what he did best. He waited and looked for cracks. There were always cracks. Plus he could bluff with the best of them.

"Ask him already." Bill leaned over the banister and peered upstairs. He put a hand up to his throat, started, and then put his hand back down.

The moaning was coming from upstairs. He hadn't seen any sign of his mom, but there was no reason to give them that leverage. So he didn't mention it. She went to visit a neighbor down the street sometimes when the neighbor's wife was out of town. It would explain why she'd had such a grand meal ready for him, because it hadn't been meant for him after all.

The old crone bent over him, inspecting the iron chains binding his wrists. She nodded to herself. "Yer done to Angie a thing, eh? She's a good lass. So she is. Mmmm."

Gideon nodded.

"Good, yes dearie. That there need'n ta be stopped. That's the first." She peered at him. Patches of hair were missing. The remaining clumps of gray hair hung limp from her skull. "Speak."

Gideon smiled, not letting the pain touch his eyes or lips. "It can't be stopped without killing her at this point. She willingly let it into her womb."

Jake howled, smacking the butt of the shotgun over and over into Gideon's face. Gideon felt his cheek bone crack.

The old crone raised her hand. "Sleep child." Jake's eyes blinked a few times, his head slumped forward, and his body collapsed to the ground. He curled up into a ball around the shotgun. He was snoring within a minute.

The crone sucked in a breath. Her lips outlined the gaps in her mouth. She only had a handful of teeth left. "Not sure as all that." She grunted. "I seen her. Some'tin in that there belly. Swollen and a hunger."

"She...it needs to feed. I don't advise going into that room. I'm afraid what she'll do if she isn't fed proper and soon."

The crone nodded. "Chap be a hunger, ol'right." She sucked her lips against her teeth again. "But mayhap the chap won't bother if pa be gone, eh? Hee hee." She poked several of his broken ribs.

The pain was terrible. A series of wet coughs erupted, shaking his body. He couldn't move, but his muscles still managed to tense up and bear down upon broken bones. Flecks of blood and spittle flew from his mouth.

"Oh don't be baby'n." The crone cackled. "Ye put 'er chap in. Ye take'n 'em out?"

"No. It has to come to term, well fed, whole, and hale. Anything less will kill the host as easy as the thing within."

"Nay, nay. These old hands stopped such afore." She shook her hands.

L

"Have they Rhea?" Gideon asked, fixing her for the first time with his dark eyes. Her name had leapt to his mind, as names liked to do these days. Plus some more information like the fact that she was a virgin. Which explained the power in the salted blood, and how she harvested essence. He tilted his head back and laughed hard. His body shook. It was like dancing with a million fishhooks pulling in different directions. "Sure you bound me with iron, salt, and blood, but-" Here was his first bluff, "Did Isabella tell you what you were catching?"

"Dontcha dare sass her Grace!" Rhea, the old crone, loomed over him. Her putrid breath gusted over him as she panted. "Dontcha be!"

"Old Gran," Bill said, looking from the stairs to the table. "Hurry. It sounds horrible up there."

True enough the moaning had escalated to loud screams. The hunger radiating from his bedroom was palpable. Whatever was buried in Angie smelled its food. It was getting impatient.

"Hush!" Rhea glared at Bill until he nodded and quieted. Then she panned around the room at the rest of the troupe, giving them the stink eye as well. "Now ye use those pipes if something terrible comes down those stairs. Aye. Shut it, and let old Rhea work."

Having dealt with the upper echelons of the supernatural, Gideon found the dregs refreshing. "I assume you are familiar with Craven and Bijou?"

Rhea shrieked and tumbled back away from him. Her shriveled eyes whipped around to two black teardrops on the table with Gideon. They were encased in iron, salt, and blood as well. "No!"

"Oh yes." Gideon said, lowering his head.

"What?" Bill said. "Hurry."

"Shut your pie hole Billy boy." Rhea was looking at her wrinkled hands. "Me needs her thought space." Her hands spasmed as her face wrinkled up like a crumbled paper bag. "Think Rhea. The great lady heaps reward fear ye, aye, aye girl she do."

"I beat her in her sanctuary, Rhea. You think her pride can tolerate you defeating me?" He laughed. Fuck it hurt so bad. "Craven? Bijou?" The air passing through his neck might as well have been boiling water. "Go and call her. She'll send a few girls here to clean house."

Members of the troupe whispered among themselves. The shrieking upstairs solidified into words. "HELP! IT HURTS! ITS ITS-" then screaming.

Gideon had some sense of what was going on, but it was difficult to make much out with the bindings upon him. Time wasn't on anyone's side here.

"Gideon!" Lavinia shouted, running towards him. Two of the troupers caught her and dragged her back to the couch. Gideon didn't want to turn his head that far to follow her back. She must have been put under by Rhea, which meant Jack would be up soon.

"I'd treat her well," Gideon said, coughing up more bloody phlegm. "Her father's a billionaire." He assumed so; his intuition said it was so. Why not go with it? "Not one of those nice billionaire's that donate all their money to charity. We are talking a ruthless shark that ate everyone until it had everything."

The mood in the room changed, he could feel the tendrils of greed and fear. That was something he could work with.

"Shut yer pie-"

"Let's hear him out."

"Yeah, what's the problem?"

"Lies. It pukes 'em!" Rhea hissed, pointing an accusing finger at Gideon.

"It's true," Lavinia said. Her voice was soft and sad. "I could get you a coupla mill easy, but we gotta be released safe and sound." Even Gideon was convinced with how casual she tossed out the figure.

Gideon felt the rising tide of greed. They must have re-evaluated Lavinia and the diamonds she wore. If they had thought those diamonds were fake crystals before, now they must be thinking otherwise.

Bill was sweating and trying to resist going upstairs. He wailed at the screaming going on up there. "Hold on Ang! We're coming!"

"IT HURTS SO BAD!"

"You don't have to call Isabella-" Gideon started.

"Don't ye disrespect the great lady!" Rhea cut in.

"She'll send some girls by soon either way." Gideon closed his eyes. The darkness and his greater self offered inhuman resistance to pain and injury, but he was close to those limits. Maybe if he had some essence to draw upon, but there was nothing left. His body was stretched so tight over the table that he couldn't move his leg to kick at the coup. It was close to his right knee. So close.

"I'll wait," Gideon said, "She's pissed at me, but she'd rather have me take a knee and release her daughter. Can't say much about witnesses though."

"Promises! We gots promises. Don't ye bother."

"Specific ones against death?" Gideon swallowed battery acid pain down his throat.

"What?" Bill said, shuffling closer.

"Don't listen to its lies!" Rhea hissed.

"You sought permission to seek retribution against a kindred within Isabella's territory. Sure. I was unknown to her then, so she agreed to see how I'd handle the situation. Win-win for her either way. But that was hours ago when you thought I'd kidnapped Angie and impregnated her with my infernal seed. That was before I bested Isabella." It was so hard to keep his voice normal. He wanted to chorus Angie's screams. The thousand points of pain demanded recognition. He'd lose all advantage if they knew how close he was to death. He had to hold out long enough to extract a promise.

He felt Bill's presence looming over him. Gideon didn't bother opening his eyes. "Can you help her? Really help her?"

Gideon cracked his eyes open, and took a few seconds to stifle the scream that wanted to escape. "Yes." He closed his eyes. "Isabella will kill her. Competition. Punishment."

"What?"

"Lies and lies from its eyes I spies." Rhea was also leaning over him.

Her decaying breath made him gag. A reflex Gideon was too slow to prevent. He spit up blood and bile. It oozed down his chin. Time to play a different card.

This close he could sample their weak points. Rhea was a virgin, but she lusted for power not sex. It wasn't greed. She needed power. She was hungry for it. Insatiable. Whereas Bill was just a worried parental guardian who had greedy tendencies but none of those were on display. The greed came from the troupe with the iron pipes nearest Lavinia. That and lust.

Gideon swallowed down the rest of the bile in his mouth with considerable effort. "Only Angie can save us."

"We can set you all up," Lavinia broke in. "You think this is the first time I've been kidnapped? I got insurance for this shit. It's no big deal as long you don't kill us."

Bill and Rhea ignored her, but the troupe was listening. Their greed was refreshing.

"What do you mean?" Bill asked. Others in the troupe echoed him. One in the troupe, Sammy, licked his lips and reached to finger the large diamonds around Lavinia's neck.

"Billy-" Rhea started to say.

"Shut the fuck up, and let's hear what he has to say." Bill's hands pressed on the table, contracting into fists. He broke the salted blood without noticing it. Not that it helped Gideon much, but having two of the bindings released was like dialing back the voltage from a ten to a seven. It bought him a few more minutes of feigned indifference.

"I haven't corrupted Angie, you idiots." Arrogance and strength would have to win the day. If they saw him as a way out instead of an obstacle, maybe he'd make this out alive.

"Wah?" Jake said groggy. The shotgun creaked as he flexed his hand around the stock.

Of course, Gideon realized, Jake would be Angie's ex-boyfriend. A very one sided breakup he had no doubt. Jake was middle aged and stale. Angie was a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven. Just great. That was all he needed. Jake would be protective of his young ex-lover. Even shunned now, he must feel the guardian of the girl without parents. He probably saw it as a way back between her thighs.

Gideon plunged ahead before Jake could butt in. To play this right, he had to look into Rhea's eyes without blinking. Except he thought he might puke and cry instead. He took a deep breath and scraped every last morsel of essence, pried every mote with his fingernails from his soul. Gideon squeezed his eyes closed to contain the tears. Then his dark eyes snapped open, and he caught Rhea with them.

His voice carried weight. "She bears my sword." It was all he could say. More was impossible. He held her eyes with his. Stoked the ache of her hunger. If he could do that to Angie, what could he do for her? Isabella didn't treat her with respect. Isabella gave her scraps. Gideon doled out a king's ransom to a girl he had known for a few hours. Who would you want to hitch your wagon to? Who Rhea? WHO!