Sacrifice (Book 2)

Chapter 5 - Railroad Spike

Excruciating. Pain. Behind. Eyes. Please, Sire. Make it stop.

Mariposa sat in the high-backed wooden chair in Erdo's cold, limestone office, her eyes wide and pleading. Erdo had frozen her limbs in place, but not her eyes. He wanted to watch her reaction, see the fear, gauge her pain. He sat opposite her with the pointed tip of his thumbnail piercing her temple. A small trickle of blood ran down the side of her face and wet his finger as his mind drilled through the overlapping layers of gray matter looking for answers to his questions. His concentration was absolute and relentless.

He pushed the end of his nail in a little further and watched a new drop of blood slide down her cheek. Mariposa screamed in her head. It was a wild, desperate sound. He would not allow her to speak. Her answers would come only from her mind. "Where is she?" he repeated.

Swear. Don't know. Please, sir, stop.

Mariposa sobbed in her head and he ignored it. She had learned discipline well in the five years she had spent with The Man. Erdo wormed his way through her cerebral cortex looking for clues that proved she was hiding something. He probed a little deeper. Her lids flutter slightly as she absorbed the pain. "I don't believe you. She would not have left without telling you where she was going."

Didn't tell me. I swear it. Swear it.

Erdo was skeptical. He watched her closely as he posed the next question, "Did she go to see one of her children?"

Don't know. Please. Don't know. Too much pain.

Nothing, he got nothing. There was no telltale sign she was lying. But he didn't believe her. It was one of the few times he cursed the fact she wasn't human. If she had been, he could have watched her respiration, listened to her heartbeat, smelled the fear in her pheromones. "You know my sweet pet, I'll let you go if you just give me a hint where I might find her."

Please, stop. Don't know anything. Please, Sire.

More weeping followed. Erdo was frustrated he couldn't get her to break to the truth. He tunneled his way into her amygdala. He knew she was protecting the Queen, he just couldn't find it in her mind to prove it. "Please, Mariposa, this has gone too far. You know how much this hurts me to have to do this. Let's be done with it. You helped her escape. You're the only one that could have. So tell me, at least, when will she be back?"

Didn't help. Didn't do it. Don't know when coming ba...

Mariposa blacked out before she finished the thought. Erdo was furious. It was useless to continue. Either she had enough discipline to control her thoughts and he wasn't getting in, or she was telling the truth. The later he believed was highly unlikely.

Erdo removed his finger from Mariposa's temple and licked the blood clean. He leaned back in his chair and waited for her to wake. He might have pushed her too far. Part of him hoped that wasn't the case. She was a valued prize, one to whom he had become attached. When he first came upon her in 1890, he had seen past the matted, lice riddled hair, straying eye, arched and twisted back. He saw her for what she could be.

Since he became vampire fourteen centuries ago and learned of the prophecy foretelling the arrival of the powerful she-vamp, he had searched for The One. The men he sired were always strong and formidable. But the women he turned fit no pattern. He chose beautiful women to keep him company, the strong-willed for entertainment, the intelligent for conversation, and the downtrodden for the sheer pleasure of it. Too often however, he forsook his fledgling she-vamps, and they were forced to fend for themselves without proper tutelage. Left to their own devices many perished. But that was of no consequence. They were weak. He had no use for them. Some became wild, rogue creatures that inhabited caves or slept below the surface of muddy swamps. They were the undead who had lost their minds and were out of control, their sole focus being that of survival. These were the ones that caused him problems. He had been censured several times during the Napoleonic Era in Europe for abandoning his progeny, and consequently forced to immigrate to America where the Vampire Nation was less organized.