Vampire in the Sun

Avery had thought that their torturous punishment of Georgia would be sufficient to satisfy Conrad of their pretended loyalty. That experience was more than harrowing enough, and they didn’t feel they could stomach any more of the same. They felt relief that it was over, but even that small consolation was to be dashed, when Conrad summoned them once again for the same purpose, leading them to the punishment chamber where Rashmi had been brought in chains by the guards.

Rashmi opened one swollen eye at the sound of footsteps and registered Conrad and Avery. To be honest, they looked much worse than she felt, and it was a strange feeling. Then again, it was always easier to be hurt than it was to hurt someone you cared for.

In the case of this slave though…Rashmi… he’d just capture her and punish her for running off like this. It was a rude introduction, that was sure. Her scent was something he’d memorised a way back, he did the same with all of the slaves, just in case he needed to track them. 

Second door on the left. The drawer across from the oven. A butter knife, slightly tarnished, but still a beacon of hope. That was what she had now, and it would have to be enough.

He laughed at her hateful speech. While her words alone would be sufficient grounds for punishment, he was too eager to see her carry out the execution to interrupt the proceedings. They also served to highlight how truly meaningless anything she might think or feel was in the face of power. “Say what you will. Actions speak louder than words” he taunted her smugly. 

An evil grin spread across his face as he saw her taking the pistol from another slave and moving to the front of the crowd. He stepped closer to her, standing behind her, with the slaves cowering in front of her. He could see her body shaking, her fear and discomfort palpable. “Show everyone here the fruits of rebellion. What are you waiting for? Do it!” he urged her on.

Rashmi walked over to the two wretched slave of the floor and kneeled next to them, taking the boy’s hands in hers. She might not have had the ability to make his end completely painless, but she knew how to make it better than most. “Asato mā sadgamaya. Tamasomā jyotir gamaya. Mrityormāamritam gamaya,” she whispered, nestling the gun against the back of his skull. From despair, lead us to truth. From darkness, lead us to light. From death, we embrace immortality.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, commandeering the dying guard’s weapons. “I’ve been shot before. It’s not a big deal for me, unless it his me in the chest and I’ve got a Kevlar vest for that.” The last part was a lie, but she’d rather be free and dead than living and in chains. “I just want to get some blood. It’s been too long since I’ve had a good fight.”

Things got hazy again. Swimming in and out of consciousness, he was dizzy and lightheaded, starved now that all the blood had been stripped from his veins.

He slipped out of consciousness when she was bandaging him, and yet the pain and the helplessness triggered visceral, ancient memories, of his mother cleaning him after hurting him.

“Crow... Crow, you have to stay with me. You’re on Scarlet Island, the year is 2015, and everything is shitty but you’re going to be alright.” Right before his eyes went blank, she had seen that blank, thousand yard stare that was so intimately, painfully familiar to her. If Crow had to die right now, she wanted him to die here, with her, not lost in some buried pain.

Yet here she was. For something. She wasn’t actually sure what. Her place in the line came nearer and nearer to the front, until she was next. She’d witnessed the floggings before her, and while she tried to convince herself that she’d survived worse, the reactions of others made her doubtful.

“And I’ve read of some of the experiments you’ve done—it would be hard to beat you enough to let the punishment sink in, if you will. Nor do you really deserve that humongous a flogging—not having attacked a master, as dear Crow did.”

He gestured to the confused guards, who got the picture (to their credit) and began lashing Georgia’s wrists together, preparing her to be strung up on the whipping post, which by now had blood and even piss from one young human on it.

Rashmi looked to Georgia, trying to catch her eyes. If the wolf was savvy enough to pretend she was hurt, then maybe Rashmi couldn’t have to hit her so hard. It was a small hope, but one she was desperate to hold on to.

“I know how to properly clean wounds, sir. I served as a field medic for over thirty years, and most of that was before the invention of antibiotics.” Even though Georgia’s shirt wouldn’t offer much protection from the blows, it might soak up a bit of the wolfsbane. Tear it off as soon as the punishment was over to minimize damage. “Leave it on.”

The next slave was dragged from where she was tending those Taiga had already flogged. Considering his break complete, he surveyed a slave he’d been wanting to see more of: Rashmi Gage.

“You published a few interesting medical papers on the neurochemical structures of addiction in people with Vikram’s Anomaly,” he said as way of introduction. She was being dragged up onto the stage. “I thought those and your publication on psychosomatic pain to be quite enthralling.”

“No, no; none of that.” He stopped the attendants from binding Rashmi’s wrists for the flogging.

A slight hiss escaped her when Georgia was brought up as well. What was he...? No. Still, she tried to frame it in a positive light. Even if they had to fight each other, or she had to beat Georgia, there was every chance she couldn’t do the damage to her that Taiga could.

“Doctor Gage,” she corrected, hiding her fear behind crisp ego.

Crow tried to escape again, one last time, but Mr. Lewis himself captured him and dragged him back personally. His chance for freedom was over, no matter what Selena did on his behalf.

The vervain was forced down his throat, Crow sputtering, biting back the pathetic shouts for mercy that were on the edge of his tongue, gagging as they overdosed him until he was weak and shivering, drugged to the gills with poison.

Crow was eventually tied up. His hands were bound and he was hitched over the whipping post. He was strung up, kept there. The crowd was enthralled, excited, as any town at a public hanging, even some of the slaves. Crow was anything but well-liked.

And Taiga, who had volunteered for the duty, had a flogger in his hands. It was a long whip with multiple tips, with little barbs locked in the strands. He began to untangle the tails.

“Slave, you attacked two masters.”

Crow didn’t have a name anymore.

“And there’s some here that think you ought to die for it.”

There were howls. The wolves wanted blood.

“And I’m not too opposed. But I know for a fact—”

He knew because he’d given it to others, many times.

“—that there are worse things than death. And for what you’ve done, you’ll get your just reward.”

As his cold, lonely voice spoke, the whip was prepared. While he unwound it he was thinking and he was thinking hard about where the first strike should land.

He decided. And there would be the first crack. And then another. And then it went on and it went on, with the clothes on the man’s back being torn beyond repair. Blood would start to roll and so would the sweat, with each lash going deeper than the last. At first, Crow gasped. Then he yelped. Finally, the pain was too much and he screamed, never letting himself form words, never begging for their mercy. There’d be no mercy, and after hours of fatigue and when Taiga believed Crow might have slipped away, he was doused with a prepared bucket of sea water. Salt was his prize before the lashes began again and Taiga’s cold, calculated, restricted manner broke down with joy. He began to hit him harder, quicker, the time between lashes bare.

Pound for pound it was taken out of Crow’s flesh.

Until it finally stopped. Whether Crow was still alive at that point would be difficult to discern. But the bloodlust of the masters? It was gone. Replaced.

Watching a man get whipped was fun for a bit. But when the hours went long and the body looked less like a body it began to become revolting. It was sick to watch. It was ugly.

Instead, she saw her older brothers, Vimal and Harshad, being beaten within an inch of their lives by an English overseer. They had taken too long a break from building the railroad and then lamented the working conditions. Her mother’s eyes blazed with hatred while her father did his best to hold her back. Little Jyoti buried his face in her kurti, crying the tears Vimal refused to.

This was nothing new.

It seemed like hours later when the master was done, and Crow was gently placed into her open arms. She loved him just as much as she did her biological brothers, and would give him the same care. “Crow,” she whispered, gently placing him on a gurney before pushing him into the shade. “Can you hear me? It’s going to be alright.”

They suddenly saw Rashmi pouncing onto one of the bodies, burying her face in the blood, and felt sick. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, they knew she was a vampire, but they’d simply never seen her do this before, and their revulsion at the sight was deep-seated and instinctive. This was her true nature, a monster who feeds from corpses. Avery suddenly realized they were thinking exactly like a hunter, and was disturbed by how easily they’d slipped into it.

“Where are we going to go? There’s...” she sat down, mechanically, trying to make sense of the rush of information that was flooding her brain. “It... it’s really bright out. Do I.... do I have a daylight ring?”

Given the fact that she wasn’t burning yet, the answer was probably yes, but it didn’t feel like it. Everything was bright and hot and the colors were too vibrant and the smell of blood and dirt and pain. Rashmi didn’t know whether she felt dead or alive.