Death couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason why, but he had burst into a hysterical laughter that had him struggling to take a breath. He felt embarrassed, but couldn’t stop, hiding away in the corner only getting louder the more he couldn’t understand what he found funny.

  Why am I laughing? Death thought. I am a conqueror; I don’t laugh in situations involving torture… am I losing my mind?

  “We haven’t even started torturing him yet!” Vera said. “How are we supposed to work if you’re laughing and not watching?”

  “I like his laugh,” Snow giggled. “Makes me want to laugh too, means my hands won’t be steady, more chance to make mistakes and hurt him more.”

  “I don’t even know what you want!” Finnso cried. “Was it when I struck that little girl last week for calling me fat?”

  “No, but that little girl is a hero,” said Vera. “Speaking the truth that all are thinking… Snow, did you get the tools?”

  She unravelled a piece of leather and revealed a few sharp rusted tools. “Only these,” she said sinisterly. “Found them in a crate, nice and blunt, it’ll take a while to cut away flesh with these… look at this one, Vera, I think I’ve seen this one—they use this to screw a hole in your skull if you have a fever.”

  “Reckon if we press hard and spin it fast enough it’ll dig through his fat?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Snow snickered. “Oh my, look at this, sheep sheers, these are nice and sharp, one snip and we could have his balls off.”

  Finnso began to pray, Vera grabbed him by his gob and spat in his face. “Didn’t you hear, fatty? There’s no Heaven, woosh, all gone, poof, destroyed—who you prayin’ to, ya daddy? Ah, I know who you’re praying to, he’s praying to Killian… come on, fatty, say it… Killian, I’m your little boy bitch, say it.”

  Vera slapped him again. “SAY IT!” she demanded.

  Finnso repeated the words through tears.

  What a pathetic man, Death thought. I personally have never been tortured but you wouldn’t find me sobbing like a toddler under any circumstance.

  “I think we should get him out of those clothes,” Snow said teasingly. “See what we’re working with…”

  “You don’t have to!” Finnso begged. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know! What kind of people torture someone without even asking a question first! I submit, I surrender! Just ask!”

  “Aw… do you hear that, little Snow? He’s submitting to the two little girls.” Vera pulled Snow closer and pinched her cheek. “Look at her, Finnso. Oh, look at the pretty girl, do you submit to her?”

  “I do!” he screamed. “Somebody help me!”

  “Oh… that doesn’t sound very much like submitting, does it?”

  “I don’t think it does,” Snow whispered. “Clothes off, piggy, we like to ask questions later—make sure you don’t tell porky pies with that lying tongue of yours.”

  Vera summoned her daggers and tore off his clothes. The two giggled at his small cock resembling a larva before tightening his ropes to keep him still.

  “They’ll fucking hang you three for this!” he bellowed, trying to escape from his ropes. “Whores! Do you know who I am? This is a city of peace, crimeless, you’ll be executed in front of thousands of watchers!”

  “Carefully fatty,” Vera whacked him on the top of the head with a folded map. “You’ll knock your chair over and we won’t be able to get you upright.”

  “Make up your mind,” Snow purred. “Are you a coward, or are you brave? Don’t be begging us for mercy then throw words like ‘whore’ around… that really hurts my feelings, don’t you know it’s rude to hurt the feelings of a girl who’s looking at you naked?” She grabbed his hand flat against the armrest and carefully squeezed an iron plier on the edge of his long, crooked, yellow fingernail. “You should apologise… I’ll have you know that I killed a dragon, I can easily kill someone like you.”

  “Ain’t no way a little tart like you killed a dragon.”

  Vera struck him with a gold bar and broke his nose. “Oy, I saw her take down the thing with my own eyes… this gold bar is mine now, by the way, and we will not accept attitude from a man whose balls look like a mouldy sack of half-eaten onions. Say… yes my queen, I understand.”

  “I… I understand.”

  She struck him from the other side with the bar and set his nose back into place. “Yes, my queen,” she corrected. “Use those ears or I’ll take them away from you.”

  “Is this your method of torture?” Death asked, finally able to speak. “Or is this your fantasy?”

  “Bit of both… now, say it!”

  Finnso called Vera his queen.

  “Now where’s my apology?” Snow said. “Did you forget what got you struck in the first place… hm… what should he say to me, how about… I’m sorry, slayer of dragons.”

  He repeated her words and Snow ripped off his nail anyway, pus and blood shot out from his shaking hand as he screamed for the gods to hear.

  “Shut up!” Vera covered his mouth. “The people above can’t hear you, but we can, like a fuckin’ echo chamber in here.”

  Snow ripped off a second fingernail, this time not as clean, it split down the middle and she only took half. “Oops,” she said with a giggle. “Hold him still while I get that last little bit.”

  Vera choked him in a headlock as she took the remaining half, then decided to take a third nail just because she could. She picked them all up and held them to his head. “Open up… time for a nice meal! Maybe not a nice meal, but I worked hard on this!”

  Vera forcefully opened Finnso’s mouth, he begged them not to, blocking his hole with his tongue. “Please!” he moaned. “Stop!”

  She pinched his tongue, pouring in the bloody fingernails. He was forced to swallow them after they threatened to suffocate him if he didn’t gulp them down.

  “That’s what you get for not answering any of our questions!” Snow yelled. “You big dum-dum, we’re the bosses here.”

  Finnso eyes desperate looked at Death. “Hey, you, you’re the boss here, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t talk to him!” Vera yelled. “You focus on us!”

  “Let him have a moment to speak,” Death said. “I am intrigued to know what the fat man has to say.”

  “Sixty seconds,” Vera whispered. “You go over it… I’m taking one of these squishy sausages on your other hand.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I can tell you anything you want,” he said to Death. “You said Killian Entrail more than once since you came in… I—I can tell you what you want to know! Where he lives, his movements, his fuckin’ taste in women at brothels! Anything!”

  “The big Killian Entrail is disloyal to his wife, huh?” Vera said. “Does he have a big dick? Oh, come on, Finnso, I know you know how long it is… is that why your so fat, taking his monster loads on the daily?”

  “What the—”

  “IS IT BIG?” Vera yelled.

  “Yes! I—I don’t—yes, it is!”

  This is the oddest method of torture I’ve ever seen… however, you will find no complaint from me if it is working. “You will tell us everything we need to know.”

  “I will tell you everything you need to know,” Finnso repeated. “Just… please… let me out of this fucking chair, no more.”

  Death feigned consideration, then shook his head. “The girls are having fun,” he growled low. “Be thankful it’s not me with those tools, I would do things to you that your feeble mind could never comprehend… you will die in this house, and what do you think we shall do with your body once we have carved your soul away?”

  “You’re cannibals?” he said in horror. “Please don’t eat me! I have tons of food in the pantry!”

  “We know that,” Snow teased. “But we eat what we are told to eat, don’t we Vera?”

  “Yes, we do… anything… everything…”

  This feeling I am having right now, it reminds me of when I was all-powerful. I like this feeling; I like that they are willing to listen to my commands. I will have my own fun with this man; I want to see these two rip him apart like hungry animals.

  “Your food in that pantry doesn’t sate me,” Death said. He took a stool and sat comfortably, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. “I will eat your flesh raw, a delicacy, then I shall share it amongst my followers, you shall be nothing more than red mushy mass when I’m done with you.”

  “Looks like you boyfriend wants to watch us have all the fun,” Vera whispered. “Doesn’t that sound nice, little Snow, hm? You and I working together.”

  “It does,” she said bravely. “You’ll have to teach me methods, I am not very good.”

  “I’ll teach you everything you need to know… like this, for example, stick to your promises. Fatty, you were talking for way more than the sixty seconds, you know what that means!”

  “No…” he said in disbelief. “Please, no!”

  Vera summoned here dagger and stabbing into his hand, cutting two of his fingers off. She left the blade there as she picked up the fingers, drawing a doodle on the concrete floor using it as a red crayon. “Stop your crying, fatty,” Vera demanded. “I drew a bunny and a flower for you, I shall name this little man Patrick, look at his face, I am such an artist—hey, Finnso, are you looking? I thought art was meant to comfort the disturbed, you look pretty disturbed to me.”

  “Maybe we should feed him the other finger!” Snow suggested. “It’s rude of us not to share!”

  “Gods, just ask me a fuckin’ question! Please! Somebody who can hear me, please save me! Please!”

  “Hm, I think he’s right Vera, we should give him a question to think about while he chews… but what do we ask? Such a disaster, I don’t even know what to ask!”

  “Maybe take another nail to clear your mind,” Vera suggested.

  She took a fourth nail then placed the pliers on his lap, choosing a different tool, this time a chisel and a hammer. “Don’t be such a whiney baby,” she said, resting the chisels edge above a knuckle. “I think I have a question… how’d you get so high in Killian’s ranks without any power or a gift, are you a good fighter? You don’t seem like a good fighter, falling to two girls in a cellar.”

  “I let him fuck my older sister.”

  The answer repulsed Snow. “You are weird.”

  She hammered off his finger, then nibbled on the flesh like it was a sweet treat. “Never fought I’d enjoy human flesh so much, mmm, gotta go deeper to get the sweeter meat.”

  Vera stuffed his mouth with the gold bar and began to flay him alive, exposing the muscles of his chest and neck. He loved how he fought, the ropes burning into his wrists and dripping with blood.

  “Not too much,” Death said. “You don’t want him to die from the shock of it—starting with nails was good, now you’re pushing progress too far.”

  “And what do you suggest we do, hm?” Vera teased. “Give the order, mister Death, and we shall get right to it!”

  She pulled the bar out of his mouth and allowed it to crush his cock against the chair. “Whoopsie, silly me,” she said, leaving it on his groin. “Hope you weren’t planning on having kids…”

  Death paced in a circle around the victim, taking a candle from a wall and letting the tiny flame burn Finnso’s back. Snow rested her face in his free hand, purring in happiness.

  “Finnso, I met Killian Entrail at Caron at the site of a ritual of death, he was given advanced information about this, and my first guess was that the cambions self-tipped so that the result of the ritual would tear you all apart limb from limb, however I have learned that the cambions weren’t entirely aware of what was going on… so, I ask, who gave the information?”

  “I don’t know!” Finnso cried out.

  Death took the pliers from Finnso’s lap and plucked out several of his teeth like feathers. “Do you want to lose more? You have so many left.”

  “I swear to the gods I don’t know! It came in a letter!”

  “A hand-written letter?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “So you didn’t read it?”

  “No! Killian always keeps it on him, sleeps with it, never lets anyone else have a look at it.”

  “Were you at Caron?”

  “No.”

  “What was your mission?”

  “To stay in this city, the mission was to rescue a woman, I don’t know who the woman was… something to do with Stroke Valan, I was never told.”

  Him and his men seemed all to happy slaying that woman with arrows… if they were given such notice, they would’ve been able to save her before the ritual took place. They let it happen, coming in at the last moment… they wanted her to die, but why? Why would someone with information on the ritual send a tip to someone so powerful instead of trying to stop it themselves. If they were in on the plan, why would they reveal their tactic? Whoever gave the letter to Killian was involved in the ritual and wanted that woman to live, all evidence here points to this Stroke Valan being the culprit but that seems too simple. If this Valan family are far more powerful than any other, he would just go himself… something is missing, a piece of the puzzle I can’t see, I refuse to cheat and trick Aleirica into revealing her memories so I can find who hired her, I will figure this out on my own.

  “We’re good now, right?” Finnso said in hope. “You got what you needed… you’re gonna let me go… please.”

  “Fox,” Death snarled. “Does this guy have any power?”

  “Nope!”

  “Fine then, our mission will be to find Killian Entrail and steal this letter, the handwriting will give us a clue.”

  “Did we do a good job?” Snow asked.

  “You both did good. I have not a single question more, that is all I wanted to know.”

  “You tortured me over something like that? Gods, I would’ve told you that if you knocked at my cellar door! You’re all gonna be hanged for this!”

  “Tortured?” Death scoffed. “We didn’t torture you; we killed you. Fox, kill him.”

  Vera stabbed Finnso repeatedly in the belly, he screamed, but the ropes of his chair finally gave out. He grabbed Vera by the hair and took her in a headlock; Death summoned his Choking Chain.

  “You’re gonna let me go!” he said, holding in his intestines. “I can get to a healer and survive this, let me go or I’ll break this bitch’s neck!”

  Vera moved her head back and slammed it into his broken nose, then swung her boot into his destroyed dick and balls.

  She hid behind Death, he brought his chain back in, knowing he wouldn’t need it.

  “You dirty rats,” Finnso mumbled. “Killian will—”

  Finnso exploded, literally, a red line of mist split him open from head to toe, blasting each half of his body into one of the walls.

  What is this? “Snow, fox, behind me,” Death ordered, pulling his sword. Hellish red, a portal to Hell… or from Hell, I should say.

  A skinny cambion waltzed out, carrying himself with a quiet, elegant poise. He looked like Aleirica, rose-toned skin, red eyes, orange hair, pointed ears, his horns the same colour as his flesh and stunted in growth. He dressed regal, fancy, a robe of black and dark red with gold swirls, crafted to impress, not to fight in.

  Death determined this was one of Aleirica’s brothers who had come for revenge… but he spoke softly, bowing, presenting himself as Beion Flame, the youngest son of Morgudeion the Mauler, and called himself their ally. He waved at Snow, who returned a confused wave back.

  “Hello, friends,” he said. “Apologies for the mess. If you don’t mind me saying, I think he deserved this fate. My sister called you her friends, so you are too mine—may we have a chat?”