Bound By Blood

Chapter 7: Unpleasant Reminders

Amber’s POV:

“Hello?” The witch I’d been torturing the past few days rattles her cage bars again and I can feel Kali’s frustration at the repetition of the sounds. A clanging, echoing sound that seemed to ripple and replicate in the space was made stronger by the lack of sounds present in our small area. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“No one who cares to hear your screaming b***h,” Kali replies, her voice muffled where she’d once again buried her head in her arms to avoid hearing the sounds as much as possible. Again the witch started her routine of shouting and banging but Kali seems to have lost her temper when I see her glaring up from where she’d moved her head a fraction upwards. “Seriously Amb, either you go shut her up or I will. And I think she may be missing a limb if that happens.” Kali sounds disgruntled but I know it’s because of the lack of movement from the opposite side of the board. The other players in this game who appear to be acting as if they’re free. Like nothing happened.

That brings up the unpleasant reminder of what my skank of a half-sister managed to do and I feel my eyes darken with disgust at the mere thought of her name. Stupid slut. Shouldn’t have stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. Not that I think she knew that at the time - but that doesn’t mean I’ll not punish her for that. But Kali keeps looking at me as if she expects me to solve our witch problem and that just causes my scowl to deepen until she looks at me with a faintly miffed expression for some reason I can’t fathom.

“Careful Kali,” I mumbled to her, turning back to the screen that showed me the cages I’d built. “I’d watch what you say to me right now. I’m not in a great mood as I’m sure you can tell.” I don’t look at her, choosing instead to focus on the images of the caged supernaturals and admiring my handiwork in incapacitating them all. On the way the cages were constructed and how they worked.

Iron contains faerys since it numbed their power and kept them from accessing the earth the way they needed to survive. Silver the wolves - sometimes even twisting a piece of wolfsbane around the bars on days I feel especially cruel - since it drains their power. Something I learned from keeping three wolves captive here six months ago. And effectively as well. Electricity the angels since it keeps them weak when it runs through their blood.

Vampires I caged using reinforced steel woven with magic to keep them down to keep them weak alongside not feeding them blood as often as I should (Just around half a vial now and again to stop them from desiccating and becoming useless to me.) Witches I keep captive by using magic reinforced by placing a sliver of what makes up my beloved Shadows. Making it both electric and toxic to the touch. Mermaids, I keep half-submerged in water - just so they don’t die (the same way I keep faery’s close enough to an element of nature they won’t die out) but I change the water level when I decide to torture them - making it shallower then. Copper cages for the demons since it has the same weakening effect as the other materials I’d chosen for other species. Even a few humans I could snag off the streets who wouldn’t be missed in plain metal cages. And a few that would. Keeping them trapped where they would both be able to be used as temptation and for a myriad of other reasons. When and where they suited me of course.

“Or what?” The older witch looks up and I see a degree of wariness in her eyes behind the anger. Anger and a trace of fear. “What would you do to me if I were to kill one of your precious creatures? Because we all know this is your vendetta and not mine. So what’s to stop me from ruining it? Or blabbing it to someone since you seem to have no use for me.” She sounded angry but also hurt since we’d never not been honest with one another. “What would you do to me, Amber?”

Some of the fight bleeds out of me then and I flash her a smile that’s half contrition - to appease her - and half danger. Danger and malicious cruelty we share. “I wasn’t meaning you - of course, I still want you to be part of this Kali, you’re like a sister to me.” I see her flash me an indulgent and contrite smile before I continue speaking, my rage returning as I remember which witch she was meaning and her connection to my cunt of a sibling. “I was more meaning careful who you let me near. Because if you say the witch my demented half-sister was close with then she may just have to learn how to live without her spleen after I tear it out of her back and see if she’ll either heal up or bleed out.” Or worse, I think to her, seeing her eyes widen.

“What do you mean worse?” Kali asks, unintentionally provoking my ire by prodding at the anger festering inside me like an open, infected wound. Ravaging me and twisting my aims. “What would you do to that skank down there that’s worse than ripping her spleen out her back and seeing if she’ll survive?”

I look in her direction with a mock frown on my face. Trying to figure out what my worst would be since I hadn’t had a clear picture in my mind when I’d said it, threatening it to get Kali off my back a little. “Maybe I’ll tear her apart to see how the human anatomy works, put her back together again and just repeat it. Again and again, until I can’t anymore. Killing her and hurting my half-sister at the same time.” Tasting the words in my mouth as I spoke them gave me a delicious sense of cruelty and pain as well as a certain kind of madness. One that spoke of someone who had nothing left to lose and everything to gain. Which was my exact standing in this game. Well near enough.

But Kali just looks at me. “Cutthroat and devious as well as cold and cruel,” She gives an appreciative whistle and has me looking at her with raised brows. “If I didn’t know for sure you were Rosalia’s sister I would have pegged you as some distant Starr relation. You’d fit right into our little family. Sister.” She uses the term affectionately since I know she always saw me like that, her little sister since we met and she treats me the way she would Ariadnne and Adriene.

I smile at her but don’t say anything when I hear commotion from the nearest witch cage. Asica again. f**k me, that b***h is just begging to be tortured at this point. Especially since she won’t cough up any more intel on either my sly slut of a half-sister or the witches she used to run with since I’m sure she was once a part of the previously believed to be disbanded phoenix coven that Ros-my b***h of a half-sister is regrowing with none other than Eris Murdock. Two of the people I hate most in this world. Amongst others. As the repetitive ritual of her banging on the cage and calling out starts again Kali groans and buries her head back in her arms, mumbling something I didn't catch the first time but hear when she speaks seconds later, her head turned towards me.

“How much longer do I have to listen to that b***h whine. She’s doing my f*****g head in. Can’t we just kill her Amb? Kill her and dump her on the royal’s doorstep to send a message?” She gives me an imploring look but I just shake my head, a calculated plan already forming in my mind. “Unless you have a plan already?”

I nod. “Remember when the throne ownership changed in Aerilion?” I can’t bring myself to say the names of the two people it passed on to - nor the name of the royal advisor since he and his slutty w***e of a partner were equally hated in my eyes. Kali nods. “Well, the official story that went around then was that when the two took over they tried the past pair for treason, found them guilty and executed them. Sparing the lives of the sibling's thanks to that accursed b***h’s compassion which had them demoted to their former realms - the ones of the non-vampire parents that is - but that the parents were dead?”

“Yea so what?” Kali shoots back, her eyes showing that she didn’t follow where I was going with what I’d said. Something I’d be equally sceptical about if not for having seen and felt the power the two gave off with my own eyes. Felt it sing in tune with mine - more so since Azrael was my father by birth and blood. “What are you insinuating by that Amb?” Kali’s tone is laced with doubt and rich with mistrust, not something I hear often from my long time partner.

“Well, I have it on good authority that they never did.” Kali gives me a blank look and I sigh, rolling my eyes and giving her a slow, cruel smile. “I know from a reputed source that the supposedly two dead parents are still alive. Alive and down in a basement sub-level. But very much alive. The rumour about the siblings is true - they’re all gone - but the parents are still very much alive. Meaning...”

“Meaning that someone lied,” Kali says slowly, her sighs being heard next when Asica bangs on the cage again and Kali sighs. “Look I’m not saying kill her but using her as leverage? Now that’s a clever and tactful move. And she’s the perfect candidate. Even without that accursed screaming.” Kali winces when Asica’s screams ring out again and I shudder with mildly concealed disgust.

“How would that work?” I asked her, trying to drown out the sounds of Asica’s whining and screaming by focusing on Kali’s words. “How would we do that since I thought she was just some witch nobody my deluded and brain-dead slut of a half-sister had managed to con into helping her before leaving her to die.” Classic slut behaviour in my opinion but not that it matters. “How does she answer our problems, Kal?”

What makes her so special? That’s what I mean to ask and I can tell Kali sees that as well given how her eyes light up when I direct that thought question at her seconds later. Kali’s eyes continued to follow me across the room as I moved to shut the door, still not trusting those around us not to rat me and Kali out to Laurel if our ulterior motive behind asking them for help was found out. Or if they found out I wasn’t on their side at all. Which was true, I played by no one’s rules and on no one’s side by my own.

“She’s the perfect leverage as not only did she know Eris Murdock well- they trained in the same coven when they were kids - but she was friendly with Hunter, and Ash as well. And in the short time she knew her she became very friendly with Rosalia and started forming a friendship bond with Leila. A girl who appears to be so compassionate she may as well be a walking bleeding heart. Your sister too since the two are infuriatingly in tune with the others around them.”

I process Kali’s words slowly, trying to figure out how that helped us in our current predicament. How would she work as leverage since I’m sure that if I did something to her then my sly skank of a half-sister would no doubt feel it? But would it be enough? Would it be enough to tell them all what I did to their precious witch? Would it work for the reasons we need it to or would it just serve to make them pull away, even more, making it harder to put them back on the board where they all deludedly seem to think they can step off of with little or no consequence? I know what Kali says is right but how do we do it without making too small a ripple on the other side to make it worth my while, especially since I have countless other creatures the other three would also be well acquainted with since I’d managed to recapture Aria - a demon-vampire I’d left near Leila when I only had her. Something that had caused the girl’s annoyingly stubborn heart to not run when given the chance - even if only in her mind - since she was hell-bent on saving the others.. the others.. that’s it.