Reformation

Chapter Fifteen- Diablo's Inferno

Nova

"Wake up my princess of death..."

Nova moaned softly, the sound of an aching body and soul.

"It's time for you to know the origin of your fire..."

She grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to return to the soft, dark blanket of sleep. But sensations quickly ripped her body from beneath the surface, a cold, harsh surface. Nova groaned again as she was dragged into a sitting position, clawed talons lifting her chin and scraping her battered skin. Her entire body was a mass of scabs, punctures, and bruises. She literally smelled of copper and salt from the blood that had dried in a cocoon. Everything hurt, so much that she was barely conscious when they let her down and dragged her to a cell, throwing her onto the stone slab that acted as a bed. She had fallen asleep within seconds, drifting gratefully into blessed silence like death. Ace had been taken to another cell, and he hadn't fared much better than her. His hands had been crushed to pieces, after all, and that wasn't the only thing they did to him.

"Back for more? I promise I can still scream." Nova croaked, prying her eyelids open.

Melandro chuckled, his haunting black eyes caressing her swollen face. "Oh I would love to make you sing some more. But no, I have something else in mind for you."

She wasn't sure if she was relieved or scared. Both, probably. All she knew was that the sight of his face made her skin crawl with loathing.

He seized the chain that connected her wrists and pulled her from the bed, dragging her after him out of the cell. Nova bit back a cry of pain, wincing with each step as the thousands of puncture wounds in her back shifted, dried blood crackling as she moved. This was by far the worst beating she had endured, but Nova knew what it was to wake with burning, flashing, aching, and/or pounding pain. A childhood in urban Brazil had exposed her to real pain, so although her head hung in discomfort, her will was certainly not broken. Let Melandro believe that.

She stumbled along, led through stone halls lit by torches, almost like a real-life dungeon. All it needed was a few screams of the tortured.

A guttural cry echoed down the hall.

Nova cringed. Nope, now it was perfect.

"This is quite the medieval lair you have going here." Nova said dryly.

Melandro's crimson hair seemed to move of its own accord, floating around its master like Medusa's snakes. "Are you always this sarcastic when you're tortured?"

Nova shrugged. "It tends to sharpen my tongue."

Melandro chuckled. "Sharpen your tongue... now there's an idea." He was thoughtfully quiet for a moment. "You have the pleasure of witnessing the Covenant's dark insides, the dirty underground labyrinth that to see, is to die."

"I won't die here." Nova muttered under her breath.

"Perhaps." Melandro said, hearing her. "I do have some exciting plans for you. But a part of you will die in these black halls, of that you can be sure."

She fell silent, giving up with the task of keeping track of the turns they made. Every hall they turned down looked identical, and she was too weary to keep up with the twists and turns. Everything felt blurry, as if she was being pulled through dark, murky water, unable to stop and unable to see anything around her much less ahead.

Melandro unlocked another blank, blocky metal door with a tiny barred window, and pushed her inside. Nova didn't have enough strength to counter the shove, so she fell painfully to her knees, utterly powerless. A click of the lock, and she was alone in the dark with a sadistic maniac.