Feral

5 ⇞ The Executioner

Maribel stood quietly at the door and tried to ignore the scene before her. She never could manage to stomach the marks violence left behind and she had hardly grown accustomed to it over the years. Each time she had to retrieve the executioner for Marcel was an exercise in dread. Yet, despite her efforts to ignore everything, her eyes were constantly drawn to the only other person in the room who's heart still beat.

A girl stood at the sink, rinsing blood from her hands, several metal instruments lying out to dry beside her. She was dressed in the expected uniform of an executioner. Black pants, black button-up, formal black heels no higher than four inches but no less than two—male executioners were given shined dress shoes—and all of it was tailored to fit her down to the exact measurements, each garment designed for maximum movement.

Marcel did say appearances were everything and the outfit made the girl look every inch what an executioner should be. A deadly and brutal force wrapped in the veneer of civility. Her looks only shot the message home. Tall and lithe even without heels, she held herself with a poise that should have been elegant and the mark of a lady, as it was the old vampires. But there was something to the air of her, the slight tension in her muscles, that screamed to some instinctual part of Maribel. It told her she was in the presence of a predator who wasn't about to play nice.

And the hair. Those damn auburn waves were the exact color of the dried blood staining the concrete floor, and when the light hit it just so when she'd slashed at the vampire she'd punished, Maribel swore that hair matched the blood dripping from the executioner's blade. That same hair was being released from a knot at the back of the girl's head. Mari was content to stay silent until the executioner started to braid it back.

Quietly, she cleared her throat. It never took much to catch the girl's attention, and Maribel didn't know if she was capable of speaking loudly when she was witness to the truth of the executioner's role in the conclave. The fact that she had the courage to be there at all was only because of Marcel's protection. He held the chains of this young executioner and so long as Maribel was in his favor, she was safe.

Gold eyes so empty and watchful they could have belonged to a wolf, not a girl of but sixteen, landed on her, asking a silent question. Maribel hadn't expected any verbal answer. The girl—it would have been more apt to call her a young woman—had never spoken to any of them. Years ago she'd heard whispers of her talking to her predecessor, but she doubted it and so had Marcel.

Traitor or no, Tessa had never been wrong about such things.

Those damn eyes still bored into her and Maribel had to force the words out, "The sire would like to see you once you're finished cleaning, it is recommended you leave your hair down for the meeting."

The girl stared at her for a few more moments, looking more and more like a wolf in Maribel's eyes as the seconds ticked by, before she finally turned back to the sink without a word.

And resumed braiding.

She let out a quiet breath and gave up. She wasn't going to argue with the girl, no matter how much a part of Maribel recoiled in disgust at the mere thought of her. About to relax for the moment in order to recoup enough strength to get through the rest of this, she paused when she heard something to her right. From where a dead body should have sat, tied to the chair. Then the sound came again. A rattling, wet sound that reminded her of newly turned vampires trying not to cough up their first feedings.

And the sound was exactly that. The sound of a man coughing up his own blood.

He wasn't dead. Maribel had been able to stomach the sight of him because he should have been dead. The knowledge that he was still alive enough to breathe nearly had her crouching to the floor to wretch out the remains of her lunch. Somehow, she kept herself standing and held her composure. However, when the girl glanced over her shoulder at her most recent victim, holding that composure became near impossible.