Kindred Part 5

Warning! This story contains instances of torture. Read at your own risk.

We took a bus back to the sidestreet leading to the maze of old buildings. Brice
and everyone else were deathly quiet. I knew they were trying to be inconspicuous, but I could see that they were all nervous and paranoid. They kept me between them the entire walk home-Brice and Rick in the front with Oyoko and Darian behind me-and I could sense they were scanning the roofs and dark alleys. Twice I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye that looked like the shadow of someone, or something. I assumed I was just imagining things. After all, four other pairs of eyes, who could most likely see a thousand times better than me were already on the look out.

I wanted to ask what the hell was going on-of course-but decided that it wasn't the best time. Then again, it had never seemed like the best time to ask anything that day. I decided that as soon as we got inside the apartment that I would ask my Kindred to explain everything, no matter how long it took.

But we never made it to the apartment. Correction. I never made it to the apartment.

After ten minutes of walking through the maze, I saw the muscles in Brice's neck stiffen. He stopped, then turned and grabbed my shirt, pulling me out of the way of something that I can only describe as a metal blur, that sounded like wind chimes. Oyoko and Darian also moved out of the way, throwing themselves to either side of the alley. Suddenly, the blur stopped moving and became a helmeted figure facing away from us.

I backed away, but I couldn't help staring at the person. From what I could see, the person was wearing chainmail from their neck all the way down to their to brown leather shoes. The figure turned to face us-slowly-as if they were daring Brice to attack. Brice pulled me behind me, and-following his example-everyone took a stand between me and the person clad in chainmail.

I peeked out from behind Brice to take a look at our attacker. Whoever or whatever it was had the most colorless eyes I had ever seen. Their eyes, framed by a spectacle guard of two upturned ovals of steel, seemed to have no irises at all. Just two tiny black pupils. I ducked back behind Brice, feeling my heart beat quicken. I had never been able to hear my heartbeat so loud before, even when I ran track back in high school. I could actually hear the valves in my heart opening and closing, and was afraid that if I pressed my hand to my chest I would actually feel them under my fingers. It was definitely not the woman from the changing room.

"Get out of here, before I tear off your head." Brice spoke in a low voice, but not without power. I took his arm and could feel the muscles in his forearm tighten, even though he wasn't very muscular. His skin started to get warmer, and then hot in a matter of seconds, as if he developed a fever, but his skin color showed no change. Oyoko assumed a fighting stance I was unfamiliar with, putting both feet shoulder-length apart and bending her legs at the knee, holding her arms bent at the elbow and clenching her fists. Rick and Darian assumed boxing stances.

The figure in chain mail took of their helmet. It was a woman, with natural, white-blond hair I had only seen in fairy tales books. Her face should have been beautiful, with high cheekbones and a delicate bone structure and thin, perfect nose, but her missing irises made her look like some demonic monster. Which she probably was, I assumed. She was unarmed, save for gauntlets that were chainmail as well, which some how didn't make me feel any safer. Anything that could move faster than Brice was not something I wanted to meet. The figure took a step forward, and Rick and Darian rushed her at the same time, at top speed, trying to knock her over with their outstretched arms. If I hadn't had my Second Blood earlier that day, I wouldn't have been able to see them.

Somehow, she ducked under their arms, and smiled sardonically at Brice. She moved backwards at a speed my sight couldn't match, and grabbed the necks of both Rick and Darian. Without turning around, she threw them to the ground head first. As far as I could tell they were out cold, with the attacker already focused on Oyoko. Oyoko blocked the fist she knew was coming, but was unable to avoid the second one that hit her in the middle of her stomach. Oyoko crumpled to the ground, and I could smell and see the blood she was starting to vomit. She tried to move, but I could see from her contorted face that she was in too much pain to do anything.

That left only Brice and me. And I didn't know the first thing about fighting, just some old moves I remembered from The Power Rangers t.v. show I watched as a kid. Somehow, I didn't think yelling, 'We need Thunderzord Power now!' would have helped much. Brice pushed me away from him, and quickly whipped his elbow into his attacker's nose. I distinctly heard the woman's nose crack, but Brice didn't let up his attack. He grabbed both sides of her head, and threw her against the side of a building, knocking some of the bricks away. The woman slid to the ground, but got up angrily, popping her bloody nose back in place with a low growl. "Improvement is not success. You know you cannot win this." She had a touch of a foreign accent I couldn't place. Did he know her? How?

"I'm many things, but I'm not easy." Brice said stoically. He wasn't even breathing hard. She moved to attack him again, but this time he grabbed her throat. "

She grabbed his wrist with both hands, and crushed it. I could hear the bones shatter, and I screamed. I screamed louder than I thought was possible, scattering pigeons that were roosting in forgotten chimneys. Brice looked at me sharply, leaving himself wide open for another attack. The attacking woman chopped him across the neck with an open palm, then gave Brice an uppercut straight to the chin, knocking him down. Brice hit the back of his head on ground, and didn't get up.

Oyoko made one last attempt for a successful attack, and tried to rush the woman in chain mail. The woman stepped aside, and Oyoko ended up colliding with me. The female assailent then hauled Oyoko up by her long hair, and proceeded to choke her with it. I tried to hit the bug-eyed bitch, but she just grabbed my throat with one hand and continued choking Oyoko with the other. Long after Oyoko went limp, she let her slump to the ground.

The woman in chainmail sneered at me. "You're nothing. You come from an obviously weak bloodline." She lifted me up towards the sun, to get a better look at me, letting the tips of my toes dangle on the ground. "You may be enough...entertainment for an evening. Any longer, and I'll be losing my touch." She squeezed my windpipe harder. I tried to break her wrist, but it was like trying to break a tightly wound steel cable. I brought my elbow down hard on her arm, in desperation, and it felt like I hitting a thick iron bar. I panicked and started flailing around like a fish out of water, until my eyes rolled up in my head, and I passed out.
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I woke up in pitch-darkness, unable to see anything. I tried to move my arms and legs, but I could tell by the heavy tinkling sound that I was in manacles and chained vertically, literally hanging in space. It was the worst possible position I could have found myself in. I had no leverage to get out of my chains, and the chains were so taut, I couldn't swing my body in any direction.

"Ah. Not as weak as I thought. You woke up earlier than I expected." The warrior woman who took out my entire group was in the room.

"Who are you? Why did you attack us?" I asked.

"I could tell you. But showing would make you understand better." I felt her hit me, a blow to the stomach similar to the one she had given Oyoko earlier. I wheezed in pain since I hadn't the breath to scream. "Do you understand now? You're nothing but weak trash."

"Fuck...you." I managed feebly.

I felt her warm tongue lick the side of face. "As much as I would enjoy that, I prefer business over pleasure."

"Go to hell...you goddamn lesbian."

She laughed, or rather she cackled. It sounded like there was something wrong with her vocal cords. What exactly, I wasn't really interested in finding out. "You act like that is an insult."

"Didn't...say it was. I'm just not...like that."

She hit me across the face, tearing up my face with those wicked gauntlets of hers. "Too bad. That would have been more fun." She smacked me across the boobs to add insult to injury. "Have you watched that vampire show on t.v.?"

"Which one?" She hit me harder across the face in another direction. "If you're going to hit me across the face every time I give you an answer, then I'll just stop talking."

"Would you prefer screaming?"

"No! No!" I searched my mind quickly for famous t.v. shows. "Buffy The Vampire Slayer?"

She proceeded to beat the hell out of me for the next minute or so, paying special attention to my ribs. But she answered in the affirmative. "Yes! On that show, they said something about there being only five forms of torture." I groaned, hoping my ribs weren't mere splinters covering my lungs. My abductor lifting my chin, which had slumped to my chest in pain. "What do you say about that?" My chest felt like it was on fire. Tears oozed and stung my eyes like acid rain. I couldn't answer. "The truth is, there are several dozen kinds of torture. Rape, humiliation, tickling, flaying, pulling, extreme tempertures, sound, starvation, whipping, blinding...I could go on and on with descriptions, but I wouldn't want you recovering from my love taps. And hurting yourself." I felt her lips by my ear. "That's my job to hurt you. And do worse than that."

"Why? Because you think I'm weak? That's not good enough-" She cut me off by chopping me across the eyes with her chain-mail gloves, making me scream. I shook my head from side to side trying to shake off the pain. I had narrowly avoided getting my eyes put out.

"See? You've recovered already. Can't have that..." All of a sudden, I felt a pain explode through my stomach and out my back. I knew that that damned bitch had stabbed me with something that felt as large and as blunt as a baseball bat. I screamed shrilly, shaking my body against my chains. "There's no way you're getting out of here. Those chains and those manacles you're in have been forged more than twelve times. They're stronger than Edo Steel. You're strong, but not strong enough to break them."

Brice will come for me. He'll get me out of here! That desperate thought calmed me down a bit, turning my screams to pitiful whimpers. I felt something warm splashed into my wound, giving me a slight burning sensation. It wasn't pleasant, but it didn't feel like part of my torture. I detected that same sweet chocolate-honey aroma from the blood bar, the smell of blood. Then I felt my wound repair itself, grow back skin, muscle, and parts of organs. Is she...healing me? Has this all been some sort of test? Is she going to let me go? I thought frantically, hopefully.

Another blow, this time to the middle of my stomach, erased any doubts in my mind about my captor's motives. She's going to kill me. She's just torturing me. Softening me up for fun. The only question is how long I'm going to last. I was barely conscious when I felt another load of blood wash over my new wound. The pain was making my eyes roll back my head, slowly I began to close my eyes,

"The pain...to much for you?" asked my captor, slightly out of breath. She grabbed me by my neck. "I want an answer from you! I haven't done a thing to your windpipe."

"No." I lied. "Bring it on." I decided I wasn't going to give a thing to that bitch. My screams of pain I couldn't help much, but everything else, my pride and my spirit, weren't up for grabs, I decided.

Unfortunately, my captor seemed like she had done this kind of thing before. "You're lying. The fact that you still have the audacity to lie to me, just means that you'll have to be punished."

I didn't have time to steel myself against the blow that was coming. Unexpectantly, it was her steel-linked fist to my jaw, knocking my head to the side. I tried closing my jaw afterwards, but found I couldn't. She had broken it, and now it was about as useful as a broken bear trap. I whined like a whipped dog, helpless to do anything as I felt something like a pincer clamp down on my tounge and rip out the muscle completely.

I began to lose consciousness as I felt streams of blood flow from the wound in my mouth and broken jaw pooling onto the floor beneath me. I couldn't think of anything smartass to do. It wasn't like the movies where the valient hero always has just enough strength to smirk in the face of the villain. I felt like a deer that had been effectively mauled by a wolf. The worst was yet to come. She wasn't finished with me yet. Not by a long shot.

She splashed blood into my mouth and held my jaw in place until it set right by itself. "...there. Now. Will you ever lie to me again?"

Slowly, a new tounge grew to replace the old one in my mouth. I wiggled it tentively before answering. "No." I was in too much pain and felt too afraid not to say anything other than the truth. If I lied again, she'd do something much worse than rip out my tounge. I knew it without her saying a word.

"Good. Now you know I'm serious." I heard something metal glide across my chains, and scrape my manacles for full effect. "Do you know what that is?"

"I don't know." I told her honestly. I felt her press something thin and sharp against my throat.

"And now what do you think it is?"

"A knife." I avoided thinking about what she was going to do with it and tried to focus on tensing up my body for whatever was coming next.

"Close enough." I felt the blade rip across my throat, and became aware of my blood flowing down my body in a matter of seconds. I tried my best to scream, but found the most I could do was gurgle loudly. I knew that I was going to die, but I still tried to breathe, tried to hang on for as long as I could. I started to suffocate on the pints of my blood that were now filling my lungs like balloons. The darkness took on a reddish haze as I craned my neck higher to try to keep the blood out. It didn't do any good, of course. I could hear myself choking on the blood, my whole body fighting against my restraints.

I wasn't thinking anything brave, or angry. I just couldn't stop thinking, I'm dying. I'm going to die here. If it was anyone else, if this was a movie I was watching, I would have called thoughts like that depressing. Even cowardly. 'Aren't you a demon?' I would have yelled at the screen. 'You shouldn't even care about that little cut. If it was me...'

But now it was me, and I was beginning to understand, truely understand, what pain was. What death was. And how powerless and alone I truely was. Being brought over, or even being half-strangled, which had all happened to me mere hours before, was still nothing compared to being drowned in my own blood. The blood was also flowing out as fast as it was flowing where it wasn't supposed too. My cause of death would be a toss-up between blood loss and suffocation.

Meanwhile, my heart was beating itself to a halt. I hadn't noticed my heart at all, or given it much thought since I'd been brought to that dark place, but I definitely noticed when it quit working. I managed a few more strangled chokes before...well...I died.



I don't remember anything from when I died. No hell, no heaven, not even a fuzzy grey nothing-ness with ghosts. It was like I went to sleep one minute...

And woke up the next. It was as simple as that.

I would have thought the whole Kindred thing had been the result of bad movie theater popcorn and a lack of sleep, if I had woken up in my uncomfortable, yet safe, dorm bunk. I would have called Alice and told her everything, and then we would have laughed, and gone on about our lives.

But, I didn't. I awoke sitting up in a tub half-full of warm, fresh blood. I stiffened, searching around what appeared to be a bedroom for my torturer. The room was dimly lit by candles, so I continued to sit still until my eyes adjusted. The tub was positioned at the foot of a plain-looking bed. directly in front of a figure apparently asleep underneath the sheets.

I moved centimeter by centimeter, careful not to allow the blood to ripple, even as the sickly sweet smell made my head dizzy. I had to adjust by breathing very slowly through my mouth-to cut down on the smell-and rising from the blood bath like a zombie. When I was standing, I carefully lifted one foot over the side of the tub and touched the floor, as quickly as I dared.

I heard something from the bed right at that moment, and thought, 'Fuck! I knew that was too easy!'. I quickly got my other foot on the ground, and started scurrying around looking for the door, leaving bloody handprints on the walls. The figure on bed hadn't moved so much as it was making sounds. Deep gurgling sounds like babies make. Except I was pretty damn sure that this wasn't some happy kid I had been sharing a room with.

Finally, I felt a doorknob under my hands. It was pretty hard getting a grip on it with all the blood on my hands, but you can bet your ass I found a way. I opened the door and and started to run as fast as I could, running straight into a wall!

"Shit!' I cursed as I fell backwards. The wall had a strange large bump in it that had connected with my forehead, but I couldn't see what it was in the complete darkness. I touched the bump, and realized it was very smooth, like a large polished rock. Feeling my way along the wall, I realized there were several other 'bumps'. In fact, I realized that the 'bumps' were what the wall seemed to be made of. Where the hell am I? I thought, walking away from the room carefully. I felt a little silly thinking I was escaping from some castle dungeon, but I knew that I probably was. After all, I didn't know how long I had been dead. Hours? Days? Maybe even months or years for all I knew. My torturer had enough time to move my body to where ever she wanted.

I heard loud nasal screams behind me, coming from the room I had just left. Whatever had been on that bed was being killed. Viciously. I wanted to run, but I knew if I did, I would just attract attention to myself. Instead, I crouched down to the ground, pressing my back against the rounded wall. I breathed very slowly, very deeply, balling up my hands to defend myself if I had to.

A bloodstained figure stepped out of the room, more bloodstained than me, if that were possible. It was my abductor. I recognized her hair, still almost white in the areas not smeared in blood, and of course, her iris-less eyes. She wasted no time tilting her head in my direction. I knew I was no match for her, so I tried to stay as still as possible. She approached my direction, slowly moving into the shadow until I couldn't see her anymore. My throat dropped into my stomach like I was falling from a ten story building. I couldn't breathe. All I could think about was what she had done to me. And what she could do to me.

"Damn it! You can't die like this! Move! I thought suddenly. I don't know how I did it, but I rolled away just before I heard her metal fists thud against the rounded wall. I got to my feet quickly, but felt her whip the flat of her hand against my stomach. Ignoring the pain, I aimed my knee where I thought she would be, and hit nothing but air. She grabbed the back of head and proceeded to pound it against the rounded walls until I was unconcious.


I came to with a deep breath, and nearly choked on the warm blood that was being splashed onto my face. I was lying on something that was already sticky with blood, and my eyes stung from the sudden light of a couple hundred candles. I looked around me, and looked right into the face of my kidnapper. Her colorless irises seemed to glow in this light, making me wonder if she was a demon. She smiled at me, giving me a grin that should only be reserved for weddings and theme parks. I got the impression that I was going to be the next ride. I tried to move, but found that I was manacled again, with my hands stretched above my head, and my legs stretched as far as they could go. I looked down at my feet and saw that the chains connected to the manacles were connected to what looked like a large pulley. I couldn't see my hands, but I assumed they were connected to another pulley.

"Do you have any idea what you are connected to?" asked my kidnapper. I was so scared, I just whipped my head back and forth to signify 'no'. "Do you know what I'm going to do to you?"

"Stretching." I knew enough to realize that she had set up a primitive 'rack' device.

She laughed harshly and clapped her hands, twice. "Yes! So you aren't the usual ignorant little stoner. How...refreshing." She moved out my range of vision on the side of my hands attached to the pulley. I heard a creak, and I felt my legs and arms pulled on slightly. I imagine she was using some kind of crank or winch to use my pulleys, but I'll never know for sure. "Good. Everything is in order. I'm about to give you a little test." My legs and arms were pulled to the point of being uncomfortable. I grimaced, but didn't cry out. "Tell me what I want to know, and this will be the last time I kill you. Lie to me, and this will be the start of a very fufilling relationship, at least for me."

"What do you want to know?" I was shocked. What good is any information from me? I haven't even been on of The Kindred for more than a day...that I know of.

"Give me the location of the blood bar you went to this morning."

Her motives for beating up my clan and kidnapping me were suddenly as bright as day. Goddamn it! I should have guessed she was a Slayer! No wonder she brought up BTVS! There wasn't any doubt in my mind what I had to do. "No." She turned the winch, and the chains were pulled taut. I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming.

"Tell me what I want to know!" She turned the winch again, and she kept turning until I had to scream, my arms and legs straining painfully. "Give me the location of the blood bar!"

"I said no!" I heard my arms and legs pop out of place. I howled, then, sounding more like a wounded animal then anything human.

"Tell me where it is!"

"NO! YOU GODDAMN LESBIAN SLAYER BITCH!" I knew it might be the last thing I might ever be able to say, so I insulted her as much as I could in three seconds. The chains were tightened faster, until my arms and legs were ripped from my body. I started to convulse from the shock so violently, that my torso fell off the rack device.

The woman stood over me and started speaking, but I didn't understand what she was saying, until right before I bled out. "...and down the rabbit hole we go..." was all I could make out.