LITMIR.BIZ

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over her shoulder, revealing her full statuesque form. She was dressed in an evening jacket, complete with fitted, starched white, wing—collared shirt and black tie. In its severe lines, her tailor had found a way to accentuate her voluptuous feminine figure while projecting a masculine strength.

      She strode toward the other two women. “My sweets,” she greeted them; and beneath the languorous tone of her voice, Seward detected something infinitely more sinister. He shivered as Bathory kissed each of these “Women in White” on the lips passionately.

      “What toy have you brought me?”

      The blond woman broke the heavy padlock on the captain’s chest with her bare hands, a shockingly casual gesture for one so delicate in appearance. She opened the lid with a flourish, like a waiter proudly presenting the main course. Inside the trunk was a young woman, bound, gagged, and clearly terrified.

      Bathory reached into her boot and unsheathed a curved metal blade. Seward immediately recognized the knife: It was a medical amputation lancet.

      The young woman’s eyes widened at the sight of the blade. In a movement too fast for Seward to see, Bathory sliced the lancet toward the young woman. The gag and the ropes binding her hands fell to the bottom of the chest. Bathory placed the blade’s tip under the girl’s chin. Seward gripped the handle of his silver throwing knife.

      Instead of inflicting a bloody wound, Bathory used the blade to gently guide the girl out of the box. Seward relaxed his grip. The girl touched her face and wrists to feel whether the blade had cut her. There did not appear to be even the slightest scratch.

      Seward watched the countess walk around the young woman, appraising her attire. She was dressed in a French teal wool dress, chastely covering her from her neck to her ankles. He felt enraged at the thought of what Bathory’s eyes must be seeing—a beautiful package just waiting to be unwrapped.

      The girl kept perfectly still. The lancet sliced. Her dress and undergarments fell away like puzzle pieces, leaving her delicate skin unscathed. Despite the young woman’s frantic efforts to recover the fabric, more fell away until she was completely revealed.

      Bathory’s eyes did not blink once as she drank in the sight. Shivering with fear, the girl pulled herself back into the shadows, covering her body. The Women in White laughed.

      Seward moved to the next window to get a better view. Once there, he noticed Bathory’s eyes narrow. Flickering candlelight reflected from the small gold crucifix around the young woman’s neck. Bathory’s lancet flashed forward and back so quickly that Seward almost doubted it had moved at all. But there was no mistaking the ting of the cross hitting the marble floor, the broken chain gathering around it in a smooth pile. The young woman gasped in surprise—a small drop of blood glittered like a gem at the base of her throat. The Women in White leapt upon her like wild dogs.

      “Mary, Mother of God, protect her,” Seward prayed, the words coming out as a plaintive whine under his breath. He watched in horror as the Women in White hoisted the naked young woman and hung her upside down by her ankles on a pulley system, suspending her from the ceiling. The dark-haired demon handed Bathory a black leather cat-o’—nine—tails, with curved metal hooks tipping each lash. The countess’s red lips curved into a humorless smile, her otherworldly eyes remaining focused on the single drop of blood now sliding down her victim’s chest. With a quick flick of her wrist, Bathory stung the flesh with the whip, watching eagerly as the blood began to flow more freely.

      Seward turned away from the sight, but he could not shut out the screams. He clutched the cross around his neck, but it gave him no comfort. His instinct was to rush in to save this poor girl—but that would surely be a foolhardy decision. One old man was no match against these three. They would tear him apart.

      No matter what you see or feel, nothing must distract you from your duty. That had been the last message from the Benefactor. Seward finally gathered the nerve to look again though the windowpane into the depraved insanity of the villa.

      Bathory was maintaining a steady momentum now as the metal lashes whined through the air. The force of each blow caused her young victim to sway like a pendulum. The blood dripping from the young woman had turned into streams. The Women in White, meanwhile, lay upon the floor beneath her, their mouths open to catch the precious crimson drops that fell like some hellish form of rain.

      Seward knew that he was witnessing true madness. When the sun rose, these three creatures would be lying in their coffins, asleep and vulnerable, and it would be his only opportunity to rid the world of their evil. He would drive the silver-plated blade into their hearts, sever their heads, stuff their mouths with garlic, and burn the remains.

      Yet he felt tormented by the guilt of standing idle while this innocent girl was tortured. He curled a hand around his blade, squeezing until drops of blood seeped from between his own fingers. If he could not spare this young woman her pain, the least he could do was share it. The girl’s screams had finally quieted—but they continued to echo eerily in his head, evoking painful memories of Lucy’s second death. A death that Seward himself had helped bring about. Again, the memories came rushing back to him: the anger he had felt at the desecration of his beloved’s tomb; the shock of discovering her body still warm and rosy, apparently full of life; the sight of Arthur driving the stake into her heart, as the creature that looked like Lucy cried out in bloodcurdling screams; and the tears he had quietly shed as he stuffed the monster’s mouth with garlic and soldered her tomb closed for good. Yet none of these emotions were as shameful as the one he had hidden all these years, even from himself—the secret satisfaction of watching Arthur lose Lucy. If Seward could not have her, at least no one else would. It was a horrible emotion, and every bit of the darkness that had fallen upon his life after this was well deserved. Accepting this final mission was his act of contrition.

      He was drawn swiftly back into the present by the sudden silence. In the ballroom below, the young woman had passed out from the pain. He could see her chest still heaving, so she was not yet dead. Bathory threw down her whip, as irritated as a cat when the mouse will not play after its neck is broken. Seward felt hot wetness on his face, and touched his cheek only to realize that he was crying.

      “Prepare my bath!” Bathory ordered.

      The Women in White propelled the young woman across the pulley system’s metal track and thus transported her into another room. Bathory turned to follow, purposefully stepping on the gold cross as she did so, twisting her foot and crushing it beneath her heel. Satisfied, she continued into the adjacent room, stripping off her clothes one by one as she went.

      Seward leaned out over the balcony to see if there was another window looking into the adjacent room. The rain pattered to a stop. Its din would no longer hide his footfalls on the clay shingles. Slowly and cautiously, he made his way over to the next window and peered through. The pulley system ended directly above a Roman-style bath. Dozens of candles now illuminated the sight of Bathory slipping delicately out of her trousers. For the first time, Seward had a clear view of her—without a stitch of clothing. She looked nothing like the prostitutes he had encountered in the back rooms of Camden district brothels. The wanton curves of her body, white and smooth as porcelain, would have distracted most observers from ever noticing the calculating cruelty of her eyes—but not Seward. He had seen a gaze like that before.

      Yet nothing in the doctor’s bleak past could have prepared him for the macabre scene he witnessed next. The young woman, pathetic gurgles issuing from her throat, was suspended above the edge of the empty mosaic bath. Bathory stood at the bottom; arms outstretched, neck arched back, magnificently naked. She turned her palms upward. It was a signal. In that instant, the dark-haired Woman in White used her fingernail to slit the young lady’s throat and pushed her to the end of the track just above where Bathory waited. Seward saw Bathory’s fanged mouth open wide as she orgasmically bathed in a shower of blood.

      Damn them all to hell! His thoughts were inflamed as he reached into the false bottom of his medical bag for a small crossbow, loading it with a silver-tipped arrow. If this rash decision should be his death, so be it. Better to be dead than to allow this perverse evil to continue a second longer.

      Seward

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