Chapter Thirty-Six

Pandra slitted her eyelids openas the last of her jumpsuit was sliced off her body. She'd been conscious, but playing possum, for most of the confab between Faith and the woman calling herself Gwyn, so she'd heard the plan to pair that smidge of a ballet dancer with the arsemonger, Lorke.

Not too keen on that, was Faith? One could hardly blame the girl. The two leaders, Lorke and Josnic, were frightful creatures. Little wonder Raymond had never allowed Pandra to come down into O??rat to deal directly with the Underground Om R?u. Even with her strength, she'd be hard pressed to defend herself against the two leaders should they decide to…well, do anything to her they fecking pleased.

"Nyko!" ripped out of the ballerina, and the one called Lorke stopped.

The gang of Om R?u went quiet, too, as that name bounced around the cave, then faded. Even the two combatants stilled.

That had been the bloody wrong thing to yell.

Lorke's gaze darkened to the shade of overturned earth, like ancient volcanic soil. "You Nyko's woman?"

Faith heaved on her chain, her lips bloodless and her eyes wide.

Lorke curled his mouth into what could only be termed a demon's version of smile. "Not anymore." Turning around, he stalked over to a bench, the lethal way he moved eerily reminding Pandra of Jacken, and grabbed a bucket and hammer.

"Oh, crap." Gwyn shot a worried glance at Faith, then backed away.

Faith's head swung around. "Pandra," she rasped out.

Lorke returned to Faith and set down the bucket below her feet. He shoved his hand into it, pulling out a small metal piece of something, his hand dripping with runny black fluid.

Teeth chattering, Faith stared buggy-eyed at him.

"Gonna have to mark you as mine," Lorke said. "Permanently erase Nyko from your mind." The name was limned with disdain.

"P-please," Faith chattered and choked. "D-d-don't…"

Lorke set the point of the metal item he'd fetched from the dark liquid on Faith's belly, several inches from her navel.

It was a tack…so the black liquid must be tattoo ink.

"No!" Faith flopped about on her chain like a carp caught on the end of a fishhook.

Drawing back his hammer, Lorke slammed the tack into Faith's belly.

A raw, throbbing scream poured out of Faith, her neck arching back, tendons standing on end. The dancer's entire body turned pasty in such a flash flood that for the briefest moment, Pandra thought that one tack had killed her. But, no. The dancer hadn't popped her clogs. White-eyed with terror, she strained a pleading look at Pandra again. "Pandra!"

"Faith…" Gwyn tried from several meters away.

Faith ignored her. "Help me, Pandra," she cried out. "Please."

Venting a sigh, Pandra lifted her head and opened her eyes all the way. Aye, she supposed she owned it to the girl to help her. She should've saved the dancer back on that jut of cave rock when she'd had the chance, but had let her grandiose gesture of sacrifice toward Thomal distract her from it. And here she was still alive, after all—an unhappy happenstance to have woken up to. Josnic was supposed to have killed her with that punch back in ??ran?. He wouldn't have wanted to snuff her, of course, preferring to save her for his use, but she'd seen Josnic's eyes flash R?u red, and she'd bloody well counted on him losing control and socking her too hard. Unfortunately not.

A second tattooing tack was slammed in. More high-pitched screaming.

All right, all right, keep your hair on.

Pandra peered up the length of her chain to the bolt securing it into the cave ceiling. The bolt was about half the size of her wrist. A real chuffer to dislodge by the look of it. Right, then. She gave her body a good swing, aiming to fling herself up high enough to grasp the chain with her feet. She didn't make it. Damnation, she'd lost all feeling in her arms. And a worse shower of shite was headed her way. Josnic had spotted her antics and was striding toward her, his chin dropped into a threatening angle.

No more fannying around, then. She concentrated on her power, shedding the debilitating deadness in her arms and the lingering ache in her jaw from Josnic's earlier knockout blow. She quickly searched for other wounds, but only found a strange iciness inside her, like her organs were coated in frost. Ah. Old Pandra was back, ready to hurt the first living creature who made her feel vulnerable. Bully for her. She needed her former self right now. 'Struth, she'd trade a year of her life for her immortality ring—which sounded kind of ironic, actually.

Grunting, she swung herself again, arching her legs far back, then forward, back, forth, until she hurled herself all the way up the length of chain this time. Latching the soles of her feet onto the metal links, she hung upside down like a chimpanzee, her long hair lashing about in a curtain of blonde streamers. Scrambling up the stretch of chain, she planted her feet on either side of the bolt.

Gawping faces turned up to the sight she must've made: stark bollock naked, squatting like a spider on the ceiling. Below her, she saw the smaller Om R?u take a pot shot at Bollven. Snarling, the two combatants threw themselves into a wild scrap.

Ignoring the punch-up, Lorke foraged in his bucket for another tack.

Shite. Pandra grabbed hold of the chain at the root and pulled on it, hard. Fissures snaked around the bolt. Cave dust, pebbles, and other rubble broke free and pissed down. Teeth gritted, she strained harder, muscles quivering. Rum-rum-ka-shoom! With the rumbling sound of a seven-point earthquake, the chain tore free.

She fell, bringing a sizable chunk of boulder attached to the end of her chain with her. Twisting a Triple Linde on the way down, she landed straight on her feet and already swinging, using her boulder like a medieval ball-and-chain mace. She whipped it at Lorke, but a group of three Om R?u stood between her and her target and—Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. She swiped their heads off their necks with her boulder, red streaking the air in bloody ribbons.

The boulder continued its destructive path toward Lorke, but with so much warning of imminent danger, the Om R?u leader easily ducked out of the way.

The boulder crashed to the cave floor, jerking Pandra into a stumble as it exploded apart into a herd of tiny pet rocks. Buggeration.

Lorke straightened with a deafening bawl of rage, his mighty yell sending more cave debris tumbling down from the gaping hole overhead.

It also triggered the other men to go into their R?u states. Eyes blazing crimson, they began to lunge at nearby women.

"Code Berserk!" Gwyn shouted as she turned and ran.

The women who hadn't already been grabbed, scattered.

From the tail of her vision, Pandra saw Josnic closing the last bit of space between them. She lithely sidestepped him, moving to stomp on the length of her chain near her wrists to snap her bindings off. Hands freed, she rounded on the red-haired giant, her fists raised, manacles dangling from her wrists. She clenched her knuckles tight, her focus narrowed to a point. She was going to have to fight like she never had in her life to survive this. As strong as a Pure-bred male Om R?u was—and without her immortality ring to promptly heal her—it wouldn't take many blows to land her up the swanny.

Leaping to the offensive, she turned herself into a whirling dervish of violence, surprisingly making it through Josnic's defenses here and there. Not surprisingly, her hits and kicks had no blooming effect on him whatsoever.

"Pandra!" Faith wailed.

Pandra sidestepped again, putting Faith into her line of sight.

Lorke had his hammer poised over another tack at the dancer's stomach.

Taking two running steps, Pandra flew through the air, performing a textbook-perfect spinning back kick into the side of Lorke's head. Down like a sack of spuds. That was the corker. The not-so-grand part was that the maneuver had put her back to Josnic, and that cost her. Dearly.

A mallet-like fist came down on top of her head, like she was one of those wee critters in a Whac-a-Mole arcade game. And just like one of those sorry little moles, she went straight down into a dark place, a blinding nightmare of agony engulfing her. The cave floor rose up and slammed into her spine and the back of her skull. Manic stars pranced across the surface of her pupils. Her lungs socked in. She struggled to claw through the pain, to recover herself, but her limbs were suddenly made of resin, her brain, a rubbish bin clattering down a hill.

Come on, don't shag out. It was only one smacker, for crying out loud.

With a nasty growl, Josnic came down onto his knees beside her, his colossal arm cocked back to deliver another punch.

A bag of wank for you, girl. There was only one thing she could do.

She opened the cage door on her beast. A crackle darted through her ears. Her vision filmed over with red and her muscles inflated with strength. Pressing her teeth into a tight grate, she struck out with R?u power.

Bones broke. Crunch—and again.

Josnic jolted backward, yowling.

She grabbed the chain strung across his chest and yanked. Nipples and navel popped apart, blood spraying in every direction like a hellish fireworks display.

More howling resounded in her ears. Josnic's mammoth fist missiled toward her face.

She lifted a forearm to block him, but…his power was phenomenal. Pain ruptured at the front of her head as the blow landed dead center on her nose. Her vision disintegrated. Blindly, she brought her head up with a sharp snap, nutting her attacker, their foreheads loudly thumping together.

A yell, then another punch from that gigantic fist.

Bone fragments burst off the bridge of her nose. Pain stripped down to agony. Her hearing changed programming to an out-of-tune radio station, Inga's voice singing. ?A little bird crsssssh sat in the pear-tree…

Then she was flying, Josnic scooping her off the ground and slinging her over his shoulder.

Will the rapist become the rapee in her final moments? Blood streamed from the shattered remains of her nose as her R?u beastie slunk away. Agony! Agony! Agony! Her neurons fired the signal in her brain. Over and over and over. It dragged her into a deep, dark hole. That sorry mole again. She scrabbled about, trying to tear herself out of it. Her tongue turned gluey. Her brain spun in two different directions.

She jostled on Josnic's shoulder.

Daddy, help me.

Deeper she went. Bones inched toward her brain. Her frontal lobe throbbed. So much pain… The blurry specter of Death appeared, holding out a hand to her. Beckoning. She craned her head up to get a better glimpse of the ghostly form. A single tear leaked from her eye. Thomal…be free, love.

So much pain.

Death waited, hand extended. So patient.

She reached out to accept the specter's offer, her fingers oddly grey-colored, and—

A flash of lightening whited out her vision. A deafening wa-boom! followed, rocking her off Josnic's shoulder. She landed with a hoarse oomph and flopped over onto her side, her lids mere slits. Who knew death would be so dramatic.

But so it was.

Blackness overtook her, the last thing her conscious mind registering was the sound of her pulse dimming to nothing.