Also, as a faint insidious presence in the air, a hidden spy lurking just at the limits of her senses, was the indisputable rank stench of undeath.
The foul breed were here somewhere, lurking in the shadows, hidden in this graveyard of obsolete machinery.
The smell testified that they were present, and with night holding dominion on the skies they would be awake and active.
She needed them awake so she might drag out their secrets, to find her brother. Thanos had been missing for two years now, but she would not give up. She needed an answer, and she would have it.
39
The women stepped to the pool and with the elegance of professional divers flipped into the air and dove like swans. Their ivory forms moved like knives within the crystal waters, slipping to the walls and vanishing through secluded trapdoors.
Kira watched the waters settle in their passing, wrapping her arms around herself, rekindling the feeling of their embraces, the ghosts of their touch haunting her.
The doors broke open, the foot thick panels drifting apart at a touch to reveal a small escort and a wide corridor beyond.
The two men were tall and sculpted like seasoned athletes, their limbs possessed of brawn, but not distorted into grotesque muscular Goliaths. Not one hair remained visible on them anywhere; their skin was smooth, their chests hairless, their heads utterly bald.
One was white, the other black, but both were equally handsome and both were dressed identically. Heavy boots adorned their feet, rising to their knees, with lacing riding over the zipped front. Latex leggings hugged their anatomy, the close-fitting polished material emphasising their muscles, and showing that their height, looks and muscles were not the only impressive factors about them.
The waistbands of the opaque hose were buried beneath a wide leather belt, almost like that of a weightlifter, except that it was armed with studs, with rings riveted at front, sides and back. The steel circles chimed as they 40
walked, accompanying their stride.
A featureless steel band with a similar collection of four small rings equally set around it enclosed their wrists, and another was locked around their throats. The collar was marked with the symbol of this domain and another identifying mark.
The two brutal sentries accompanied a shapely woman who was slightly more powerful of build than the nymphs of the pool, but her face was far less flippant. Her young features were beautiful, but they were thin, feral and harsh. This intimidating aura was concentrated by a brutal cut of her hair. Shaven at the sides, the top was short, spiked upward and bleached a pure white. Her cosmetics assisted to give her a fierce glower, applied to darken and heighten her malevolent appearance.
Her body was encased within a mesh catsuit, the tight netting making her skin seem darker than the pale white her face decreed it to be. The catsuit left her breasts exposed, her nipples painted to make them almost black, contrasting her surrounding paleness. A collar identical to the others circled her throat, hiding the neck of the catsuit beneath it and giving the woman her own identity mark.
Opera gloves and thigh boots of latex rolled up her limbs, coating each extremity with featureless sheaths or wicked heels. At the top of each two bands tightened them to thigh and bicep, the twin buckles locked into place, trapping her within.
A stern latex corset collected beneath her breasts, riding down to lock over her hips and throw a triangular pane down between her legs. The strap bisected her buttocks as a slim buckled belt that connected to the rear of the corset, allowing her sex and rear to be freed simply by 41
unfastening it.
In her hands she clutched a long crop, the slender woven length ending in a pair of leather tongues. The handle was ivory, carved with whirling designs and embossed with silver.
The procession stopped before Kira, and the woman looked up and down her form in assessment before speaking, her voice stern.
‘Kira?’
In reply, she nodded, wondering what was going on.
‘I am Cassandra, seneschal for her majesty,’ stated the woman, the two men continuing past and turning on their heels to stand on either side of Kira. Meekly she looked up at each of them, towering over her like mountains, their eyes fixed forward with militaristic precision.
‘Please come with us, the queen wishes to see you.’
‘What does the—’ she started and then let out a yelp, jumping onto tiptoe as the crop connected sharply with her flesh. Dropping down Kira rubbed her left buttock, a hot trench pulsating across it.
‘You are not to speak without permission,’ stated Cassandra with firm authority.
Walking past the trio, she emerged before Kira, looking into her eyes as she continued to nurse the welt. Satisfied that Kira was going to remain mute, she turned and took the lead.
Kira began to step forward, the guards steering her as they trailed behind the seneschal and left the hall. Kira looked to the scenery as it presented itself, but more often than not her eyes dropped back to study the wiggling enticing rear of the seneschal; the fishnet that smothered the perfect cheeks, the thin strap separating them, tight against her anus, the thigh boots twinkling like jet mirrors 42
as she sauntered with fluidity.
Outside the pool chamber the structure of the domain was spacious and extravagant, constructed from pale marble and polished to an ice-like sheen. The wide passage had a domed ceiling, supported further by the pillars running the walls. Sconces such as before provided scant illumination, the candles letting long trickles of frozen wax hang from beneath them.
A black carpet ran the central route, wedged between the base of the avenues of pillars, soft and sumptuous underfoot. Gaps in the pillars offered doors and access to other passages that snaked out into the labyrinthine coils, and as she was led through the halls she started to see fleeting glimpses of the denizens of this dark maze.
Caught in the corners of her eyes they were adorned with latex and leather, sealed within fetishistic attire, watching from the depths, the light flickering on their silver collars and from wicked incisors. They watched covertly, as if afraid to bring themselves to the attention of the seneschal.
The passage ended with a spacious chamber, the walls lined with deep accommodating leather couches and armchairs with ebony tables arranged before them.
Standing against the walls were women servants, bound into uniforms designed to restrict and punish their salacious bodies. Sealed within a thick latex leotard, the long sleeves bore the customary metal shackles, allowing their arms to be folded back and then placed up their spine so that their wrists could be locked to their metal collars. The leotards incorporated hoods, the opaque helmets compressing their heads, leaving only a visor for their sorrowful eyes, as well as an aperture for their nose and the silver septum ring piercing it. Their mouths 43
were also given freedom from the hood, but only so that a black ball-gag could keep their jaws wide, a black strap fixing about the hood and keeping it in place.
Also, circles had been removed from the chest of the leotard, allowing their breasts to be forced through, the garment clinging tightly to make them swell. Their nipples had been transfixed with thick silver rings, each ring releasing a silver chain, just as their nose rings did.
These strands reached down and grabbed the lip of a silver tray at their waist.
The platter had a raised edge and an indentation that accepted their belly, leaving it resting on their hips. With their nipples connected to the corners and their nose to the centre, the women were forced to bear the tray and were to suffer discomfort whenever they were brought to carry refreshments for whatever guests might be reclining here.
Their lower half was no less untroubled, for tight latex thigh boots held their legs, forcing them to walk on towering ballet boots. Fetters about their ankles connected to the base of a metal pole that lanced straight up and burrowed into their womb. The implement was of a length to prevent them getting free of it, their legs unable to reach out far enough to have the tip fall free, yet similarly it prevented them from sitting down or otherwise slacking in their servile caste. Kept upright by the intruder, locked in irrevocable bondage, the women were a sight as striking and darkly erotic as they were frightening.
A set of doors presented themselves directly before the seneschal, their entire face covered with the symbol she had seen in the pool, the emblem forged from silver and set with gems to make it wink with rainbow colour.
44
On either side of these doors, set in the floor, were two circles of obsidian from which sprouted a female head.
Encased in a rubber hood there were no concessions for their eyes or nostrils, only a slit for their tongue to emerge, for they were shoe polishers, held in underground coffins, their heads left free to serve this purpose. Kira wondered what additional bondage had been applied to them beneath the trapdoors, for surely this was not the full measure of their caste.
The seneschal graphically illustrated the truth of their vocation by placing one of her shoes to the obsidian, the clack of the sole landing upon the glass-like material alerting the slave that their services were required. As the servant began to fawn and lap, Cassandra placed a hand beside the portal, spreading her latex-coated palm across an area of blank stone no different to any other.
There was a compliant click and a strip of light projected across her face, running vertically and then switching to a panning horizontal assessment.
With her identity confirmed, the doors gave several weighty clunks as the heavy bolts and locks drew back with mechanical whines, and then the portal itself started to crank back, retreating into the wall.
The reinforced vault doors were a metre thick, and revealed a plain box room, the walls and ceiling mirrored, the floor coated with the same black carpet.
The seneschal stood back and stepped in last, turning around to present her back to Kira’s gaze once more.
The slave below her licked her lips and struggled a little against her confinement, unable to escape, only continue to languish in a position she did not seem overly distressed by. Was she a willing supplicant? Were they all? Was this the nature of the queen’s realm? Was this 45
to be Kira’s fate?
The doors started to crank shut, and sealed with a damning clang. The polished interior surface of the barrier started to drop away, the lift bearing them down, a smooth stone wall before them rising steadily as they descended.
Kira looked to the mirrors and met the eyes of the seneschal reflected there. The woman released a fleeting smirk, revealing that she had been aware of Kira’s licentious study. Immediately Kira looked down at her feet, blushing as she discovered a new intense study of her toes.
With a steady deceleration they came to a halt and a new set of equally secure doors parted, this time revealing a black velvet curtain. As they walked forward the drapes parted at the centre, being hauled back to expose a hall that had Kira gasp with astonishment.
Stepping onto obsidian flagstones, her eyes fluttered about the titanic chamber. The vast oval cathedral reached up with thick pillars to grab the arched ceiling, where detailed frescoes depicted the woman of Kira’s dreams surrounded by vampire slaves of every description.
Massive chandeliers hung from the roof, constructed from living people and each identical to the other. A large central ball accepted the eight heads of the slaves, swallowing them as it hung by a thick silver chain that reached back up to the roof. The hub spat free sixteen curling silver tendrils that reached back and grabbed their ankles, stretching them out and spreading them lewdly.
The stretched poses allowed their flesh to be used to hold the huge black candles that provided illumination.
The midnight shafts were set on their legs and back, the drool of the lights having reached down and formed about 46
the base, anchoring it to their physique. Excess ran around their bodies and legs, hanging as dark icicles from their underside, reaching down towards the floor in bulbous clusters. Hung in perpetual bondage, revealed by the light that they carried, they also served another function. Their wrists were connected together beneath them by uniform metal bands and a chain dropped from the shackles, the eight chains of each slave congregating under the hub and to a heavy censer. The burden kept their limbs stretched out, stopping them from lifting it even with the cumulative effort of them all.
From the ornate censer wafting blue trails of incense spilled in soft lines, filling the air with a heady aroma. It was a skulking cloying smell, one that tickled the nose, almost undetected, but which lurked through the senses, hiding from more discernible detection, a delicacy even amongst subtle perfumes.
Set against one wall was a dais, the regal stage accessed by a semi-circle of ten steps. The platform atop them held a large exquisite throne, the dark stone affair crafted to resemble flowing organic forms, twisting and cavorting upon each other as they offered velvet cushions for the comfort of its occupant.
The woman had not changed in countenance since Kira’s schoolgirl dream, or the previous night. The queen was timeless, without age, save that now she exuded an almost tangible ambience of power; an authority that had not been apparent on the previous occasions Kira had encountered her.
A warped crown of silver and jet curled across her hairline, holding back her hair and flicking out cruel horns and barbs. It was the imperious throne of a tyrant, a dark empress.
47
Settled on her throne she was sealed within the smooth folds of a rubber outfit. It was a mixture of sleeveless halter neck dress and leotard, the polished skin-tight shell parting at her navel into an ankle length skirt, the missing front section letting a high cut crotch cover her loins.
Sculpted thigh boots clung to her legs, and matching opera gloves clung to her arms. The fingers were armed with a detailed armoured claw, each silver articulated digit reaching from knuckle to tip before extending forward another three inches as a curved serrated fang of metal.