Over the roaring of the crowd, I hear Dmitri shout, “As part of the deal, the accused is to be remanded into the custody of the Vampire Hunters, where she will be at their mercy.”
The “boos” now echo loudly in my ears, but I don’t even have time to contemplate it, because the Hunters have already come for me. They are pulling on the chain that is attached to my cuffs, forcing me to go with them, or possibly lose my hands as the magick sears through the bones. I wonder for a brief moment if living eternity without my hands would be worth trying to escape?
“On your knees, filth,” the Hunter with the light blond hair, that I have come to loathe in such a short space of time, growls at me.
“Fuck off,” I snarl back, needing to exert some form of control here.
All it gets me is a vicious sneer and a pull to my chains which yanks the cuffs even further onto my burnt wrists. I stifle the scream that threatens to come out.
They lead me back down the dark, dank corridor, tripping me up as I go.
“Mmph!” I let out a noise of frustration, which is silly, but necessary.
“So much for a Vampire’s stealthy movements,” the Hunter snickers at me. Then he kicks up ankles and my feet go out from under me. I hit the slippery floor hard on my knees, putting my hands out to stop myself from falling flat on my face. He steps on them, crunching my fingers under his big, black boot.
“Ow,” I mutter under my breath and try to straighten them, but he just crushes them even more.
“I think I prefer you down there,” he whispers to me. “Now, move!” He slaps my arse and I look up at him in disbelief.
“Are you serious?” I can’t help but ask.
“Deadly,” he says back in a dark tone that I know only scratches the surface of this monster’s evil.
In utter humiliation, tears springing to my eyes as the Hunter’s laugh at me, I crawl forward on my hands and knees wishing for a quick and painless death.
Ponte, Italy, January 2015 - Constantine
“That Wolf is no good for you,” he mutters to his daughter as he takes her back inside the safety of the castle. “Whatever it is he wants with you; I don’t like it.” He doesn’t trust that Wolf as far as he can throw him. Figuratively speaking, of course.
He swooped in and took Aefre away before Constantine could bat an eye. He won’t let the same thing happen with his daughter.
His frown turns to a smile as she gives him a baleful glare. She understands him. It’s remarkable. She is just remarkable.
“You will understand one day,” he tells her contentedly, making his way to her nursery. It is late and she needs rest. He just hasn’t had the heart to let her go in hours, knowing that she is missing her mother as much as he is. “We will find her,” he says, placing her in her crib and reluctantly backing away. She is already asleep by the time he reaches the doorway and with a sigh, he returns to his room, rubbing his burnt wrists, to brood and think and try to connect with his wife. He just doesn’t understand how it is possible to share the same life and yet he can’t even find her on a bloody, fucking map. He lets out a growl, which turns into a howl of pain as his hand distorts for no reason. He knows Aefre’s fingers have just been crushed and it sends him into a feral rage, which turns to a yelp and a feeling of complete shame that he has never experienced in his entire two thousand, seven hundred and however many years.
“What have they done to you?” he whispers, dropping to his knees and crawling to the bathroom. He feels sick to his stomach as he reaches up to turn on the jets. He needs hot water to wash away the sheer humiliation that has engulfed him. He swallows as he drags himself to his feet and climbs in fully clothed. It brings tears to his eyes as he feels the lash across his back and then again and then the gasp of shock as his wrists get hauled up above his head. They are hanging her up like a piece of meat and there is fuck all he can do about it.
“Oh, Aefre!” he wails, feeling disgusted with himself as he tears at his clothes and lets the tears run freely. He can’t remember the last time he cried. Has he ever even? He can’t remember. All he knows is that he needs to get to his wife now. She won’t endure much more. She has been through too much. Her mind is too fragile. She is strong, but not as strong as she needs to be to withstand torture, knowing that she cannot be killed. They will try everything. He cannot let that happen.
He stumbles blindly out of the shower, tripping up on his sodden clothes and falling into the arms of Devon. He pushes him away sensing the younger man's emotions, which has to be another side-effect from his spell.
“Jesus,” Devon mutters, as he passes him a towel.
“Tell no one,” Constantine growls at him, snatching the towel off him and firstly, wiping his eyes. Any humiliation he felt coming from Aefre has been fully replaced with his own.
“We need to do something now!” Devon cries hysterically. “A spell? Her brother? Where is her goddam sire? Remiel!”
“Ssh,” Constantine snaps at him, scrunching up his eyes against the pain in his head. He raises his hand to find blood gushing from his nose and his eye socket to have swollen shut. In seconds, he has healed from all of these afflictions. Aefre has not been so lucky. She is still not healing and still in immense pain.
“I know a way,” he says, marching straight past Devon and into his bedroom. He uses all of his speed to throw some clothes on, the first ones he sees, and storms down the corridor to his daughter’s room. He didn’t want to involve her. Didn’t even think he could, but she has powers they know nothing about. If she can find her mother than he must take the chance. She wouldn’t want her mother suffering if she could help.
“Arathia,” he says to her calmly as he gently touches her. She is sleeping peacefully, and it kills him to wake her, but it is killing him even more to know what Aefre is going through. “Arathia, wake up, princess. It’s time to bring mama home.”
Place Unknown, January 2015 - Aefre
“Argh!” I cry out, ripping open my already split lip and tasting the blood. I blink one eye, my right one. My left is completely swollen shut. I jolt forward as a torrent of freezing cold water is dumped on me, cooling the burn on my head temporarily from where they set my hair on fire. The pain in my wrists, which had gone numb, fires up again. Saltwater. I feel like crying, but I won’t. Not in front of these arseholes. I just won’t give them the satisfaction of them breaking me. I can take more. I have taken more. This is nothing.
Nothing. I can keep telling myself that.