I kind of had to agree.
Chapter Thirty-one
With our little confrontation having garnered the attention of nearly the entire castle, Rory ordered everyone out of the great hall, except for the queen and us.
Now, the great warrior paced before us, keeping a hand on his hilt. I noted his broad shoulders and little butt. He was what Thor should have looked like, although Chris Hemsworth was damn close.
A distant second, came Allie's words.
His leather jerkin, boots, and various straps and sheaths all creaked. Never, never could I have believed that creaking leather could sound and look so damn...
Easy, Sam. You have a boyfriend.
I know, I thought. Care to finish for me?
Never so damn hot!
"And how long has Squire Caleb been possessed?" Rory asked-or demanded-without breaking stride.
I tried to do the mental calculations, converting what I knew about the novel to this real-time situation. "About a month."
Sir Rory paused, cocked his head a little, which sent a splash of white hair cascading over his right shoulder. "That is about right. The stupid fool. Knights do not dabble in black magic. No doubt he did it for a woman."
The queen turned to me. "Are you witches? Please, I need to know."
"Yes and no, Your Highness."
"I see. Were you or were you not sent in answer to my prayers?"
"That is an emphatic yes."
"You are not angels?"
I shook my head.
"Dark angels, perhaps," said Allison.
"I see," said the queen, although I doubted she did. "But you are here to help me find my baby girl?"
"We are. And we will."
"And you are leading me to the dungeons?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I looked at Allie, she looked at me. Together, we said, "Because that's where your daughter is being held."
She put a hand over her mouth. The look on her face suggested that she was both horrified and relieved. After all, her daughter was nearby.
"But where in the dungeons?" she asked. "They are vast-"
She paused, and her hand went up over her mouth again.
I said nothing, suspecting the queen had puzzled out where her daughter was being kept.
"We must hurry, then."
I couldn't have agreed more.
***
We were in the dungeons, having passed many cells and levels, most of which held lean and bloodied men, although a few contained women. When they recognized their queen, they threw themselves against the bars and begged for mercy. She ignored them all.
Allison's expression might have been more horrified than my own. The dungeons appealed to the demoness within me, as, I suspected, she had seen-and used-her fair share of them. I knew she and other dark masters had worked with kings and queens of yesteryear to wage secret wars. I could only imagine how many good men and women had been tortured under Elizabeth's watch. A distant laughing that seemed to rise up from my deepest psyche suggested I'd hit upon a truth.
Crazy bitch, I thought, although I couldn't deny the allure of the dungeon system. Here, there were no rights, no rules, no respect for life. Here, people were brought to be tortured and to be killed.
Interesting, I thought. Very interesting.
Not interesting, Sam. Get a hold of yourself.
The idea of feasting upon a prisoner, a man or woman who had nowhere to run or hide, was growing inside me. I'd never seen such conditions before. At least, not in this life, and it was causing a nearly uncontrollable stirring-
And that's when I felt an ungodly smack upside my head.
"Snap out of it," said Allison in my ear. "Not joking. We save her baby, and we get out, and you get yourself home to your packets of blood."
"Fine," I said.
The dungeons had many levels, each seemingly worse than the last. The prisoners' screams grew louder, the begging more desperate, the torture devices more deplorable (and interesting). Desperate cries and ragged whimpering filled the air. Not to mention, the deeper we got, the creepier the dungeon masters became, many of whom watched us from holes in the wall, surrounded by their bloodied and arcane tools of the trade. I saw lots of spikes, gears, blades and stone grinders. I was buzzing, and it was all I could do to not run my tongue along one of those bloodied gears.
Eww, Sam. Just eww.
One dungeon master looked up, then bowed deeply when he saw our entourage. The queen merely nodded at him. I noted he had been sharpening what appeared to be a collar of spikes. Incidentally, the spikes were projected inward. I found this more interesting than I should have.
Focus, Sam.
The deeper we got, the darker the dungeons became. Rory snatched a torch from a wall sconce, and, shortly, we left even the dungeons behind. Rory seemed to know the way, and we all followed him. My own eyes had adjusted nicely, and I could see the never-ending flow of energy illuminating the air. Many tunnel offshoots branched off, but Rory confidently led the way down what appeared to be a main tunnel.