Blood Born

Chapter 9

9  Lair

"He's irrelevant!"  Rafe declared, languidly.  The room was dark and poorly lit with candles.  Rafe sprawled on a large chaise near the fireplace.  The embers therein burned orange.  He slopped some cognac into a glass from a fine decanter.  The glass he offered to the woman who approached from the direction of a large piano by an open doorway, and to whom he had just spoken.  Her heels clicked on the hardwood floor as she approached.  Rafe stood up to give her the glass.  He was wearing expensive silk dress slacks, but no shoes, nor shirt.  His waistband was undone, and his muscular physique was highlighted in relief by the fire.

She snatched the glass from him.  She stood tall and pale, with short, angry blond hair.  The woman was clad in tight leather pants and a long, flowing red silk chemise that barely covered her breasts - being unbuttoned and simply tied at the waist instead.

"Idiot!"  She spat, her lip curling into a snarl of disdain.  She drank from the glass.  "Of course he's still relevant:  he's still alive.  When he's dead, he'll be irrelevant - and not before."

Rafe sidled closer to her.  "The lines are safe!  Hazel and Sandro brought the child in.  George has her under control.  The other one has long since been removed.  What else do we need?  Finish him off - char his bones!  We can deal with the other parasites as we choose to," he purred, slinking around behind her and caressing her shapely shoulders.

The woman's body unwound like a spring-loaded trap!  Her fist whipped around her and connected with Rafe's chest.  The man cried out and folded around the power of the woman's blow.  He slumped on the dark wooden floor, about two feet from the chaise upon which he'd been lounging.

"Put a shirt on.  If what the 'temple virgin' says is true," she said as mockingly as possible, "We may soon have a visitor to welcome into our midst.  I'm not done with him, yet!  I still have some scenarios I'd like to play out with him."  She switched easily from contemptuous scorn to a lascivious drawl that made Rafe moan in anticipation, instead of just pain.  He picked himself up and limped over to her.

"Shall I prepare the Lair, Mistress?"  He crooned unctuously, maintaining a deferential stoop - also because he still hadn't recovered from having the wind knocked so soundly out of him.

The woman laughed coldly.  "For yourself, perhaps.  I think we need to work on your back again."  She reached out and dug her fingernails into the skin of his back.  Rafe stifled a cry of pain, as his mistress gouged the extensive scars he bore there.  "And Philippe," she said thoughtfully, "He has done well for me recently.  I think I shall reward him with a little relaxation!"

Rafe grinned a cruel smile.  "Yes," he hissed.  "And the others?"  He asked, trembling.

His mistress sneered.  "No, they are still mere servants - not sufficiently enlightened to want to seek ecstasy.  Perhaps some of them may eventually be wise enough to learn at my knee - but not this year.  I had hopes for Hazel.  She was a breeder once - greatly resents it, too.  I might enjoy using that, but she's too new.  I had other uses for her, if you will recall."

At that, Rafe became alarmed and stood up straight, holding out his hands in a gesture urging caution.  "Ofælia!  It may not be wise to use her for that now!"

"I know, fool!"  She yelled, slapping him viciously across the face.  "Need you remind me constantly of your carelessness that night?  On the floor!  Grovel, worm!"

Rafe immediately fell at Ofælia's feet.  She placed a sharp heel in the center of his back, and bore down on it - grinding it into his flesh, until he howled in pain.  She smiled at the agony she was inflicting on her servant.  His pain would remind him not to fail in future, but she also knew that it would make him remember why he served her, and love her cruel tyranny over his body even more.

When she had drawn blood, she stopped.

"Get cleaned up!  You may also tell that mystic bitch that I have made my decision:  Hazel will guard the line, while she must tie off the ragged end.  And if that defies her powers of interpretation, then clarify it for her:  but don't leave any visible scars on her."

Ofælia turned away from her sprawled slave and walked swiftly out of the Salon.

Rafe struggled to return to his feet, slowly managing the task after a minute.  He walked over to his jacket that was sitting on a chair, and fished in one of the pockets.  He found a black cigarette box, and took out one of the uncommonly costly black cigarettes from within.  He lit it slowly from a candle and took a long draw on it.

Placing the candelabrum down, Rafe turned and crossed to a large bookshelf, where - after moving a decorative bronze helmet in the Corinthian style - he was able to enter a digital code on a small fire-safe installed in the wall.  Inside the safe was a Heckler & Koch USP, which Rafe smiled to behold as he withdrew it from the lockbox.  He also took out a box of shells and some empty clips.

It took him about twenty minutes to clean and load the gun, grinning all the while at the damage he would wreak with it:  although not by his own hand.  All the shells had red painted tips.

"Next time, friend!"  He muttered as he wiped the weapon down and placed it in an aluminium carrying case, pronouncing a dire curse on his enemy.  "Neither of us will know what happened."  He closed the case and pulled on his jacket - still shirtless.  "Good for me, but very bad for you."

With a flick, the gold-and-black cigarette butt landed in the fire - where it flared once and died.