Void Domain, Book 04 полностью

No one had so much as been in the room since she had first awoken strapped to the wheel. No tell-tale rattling of skeletons, no draining of her blood for vampires, no stench of rotting corpses.

Though Alicia was willing to admit that she might have simply become used to whatever smell permeated the torture room.

Necromancers, or other undead, did not make much sense given that they had been battling demons. Alicia had no idea what to do about that. The meaningless torture made sense in that case; she wouldn’t put it past demons to torture her for fun. But something didn’t sit right with her about that. If she had been captured by demons or a diabolist, she would have expected there to be voyeurs.

Or more painful torture.

Someone was watching her. Upon first waking, she had attempted to connect to the source. The moment she had, the wheel spun and held her beneath the water until she stopped.

After refilling her lungs, she tried again.

Let it never be said that Alicia Heiden couldn’t learn a lesson. She hadn’t tried a third time.

The wheel clicked on. Alicia felt her heart pick up the pace as it worked overtime to keep all the blood flowing to the rest of her body.

While the other side of the room was as interesting as the first, she couldn’t spare it much thought. It only took a few minutes for the headache to settle in. Alicia pinched her eyes shut.

The clicking stopped.

Alicia snapped her eyes back open as the wheel ground to a halt.

Why did the clicking stop?

There was a low groan from somewhere deep within the wheel’s mechanisms.

Alicia had a bare instant to panic.

“Cra–”

The wheel spun under her weight.

She tried to take a gasp of air, but the wheel spun too fast.

Alicia crashed head-first into the trough of water.

Her lungs burned for oxygen. The small bit of water she had inhaled before submerging gave a need to cough.

I am going to die. Whatever kept the wheel turning broke and now I am going to drown in knee-deep water.

Her head broke the surface of the water a second later.

There must have been enough momentum to bring her head all the way through.

Alicia gasped and coughed at the same time, resulting in nothing but pain. She forced through the pain and took in as much air as she could before holding her breath.

She waited for the wheel to swing back under the water.

It never did.

The wheel lifted her until she was almost facing the ceiling again.

Two dead eyes obscured her view of the five-hundred-thirty-seven tiles. Long, platinum hair fell down the front and back of a dress cut for a scandal.

Finally, Alicia thought as she coughed and sputtered again, gasping for more air. Finally someone is here.

There was joy in her heart at that very fact. Anyone was better than no one. After Lord knows how long, another person was a Godsend. Unless she was hallucinating. Alicia would rather have no one than a hallucination.

But she didn’t look like a hallucination. A fresh corpse, maybe, but no hallucination.

Maybe she would be lucky and that corpse would mean necromancers. Alicia knew how to handle necromancers.

Unfortunately, most of the things she had been fighting before being captured had looked like corpses, yet the source insisted that they were part of a demon.

As she finally got off the emotional roller coaster that seeing something else caused, Alicia had to remind herself that this person was not a nun.

That meant that she was not her friend.

“So,” she managed between waterlogged coughs, “my host finally shows themselves.”

Without waiting for a response, Alicia gathered what was left of the fetid water in her mouth and spat at the woman.

Her eyes went wide as the small bit of water turned to ice. She heard it crash into the floor a moment after, all without the woman even twitching her fingers.

Ice blue lips tipped down into a disgusted frown. “Your disrespect is unappreciated.”

With that said, the woman turned and walked out of the room with all the grace and dignity of–of something very graceful and dignified.

As soon as the door slammed shut, the clicking started again.

And the wheel started turning.

—

The cranks stopped. A moment later and the wheel spun up to force Alicia to face the dead-eyed woman.

Finally

Alicia didn’t speak. She waited, enjoying the reprieve from the clicking and the turning.

She closed her eyes. It was hardly a break if she had to look at that woman’s face.

Counting backwards from ten wasn’t enough. It would have to do. She couldn’t remain silent forever.

“Do your wors–” Alicia’s eyes flicked over to some of the more creative pain-causing instruments in the room. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“We had yet to speak.”

Alicia frowned. ‘We?’ She craned her neck. There was no one else in the room as far as she could see.

“Doesn’t matter,” Alicia said with a shake of her head. “Whatever you want, I won’t betray my allies.”

“Allies?”