An incongruous gold breastplate covered her chest and a crown sat atop her misshapen head. The "ueen of Golds.
Wendigos flanked her, their fangs dripping. They seemed to be commanded by her.
Not them. Wendigos were "uick, flesh-eating zombies with long, dagger-like claws and emaciated bodies that belied their strength. The only things Carrow feared worse than ghouls were the Wendigos. Both were contagious - a single Wendigo scratch could transform even a Lorean into their kind - but whereas ghouls were nearly mindless, Wendigos were cunning.
With each step, gold flakes and pus seeped from La Dorada's body. The trailing gauze swished from side to side over the stone floor, sounding like a soaked mop.
Carrow didn't know which was more harrowing, La Dorada or the Wendigos who clearly served her.
"RIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!" she shrieked once more.
"You want your ring?" Lothaire's deep voice sounded. "Then come and get it, you bitch!"
As La Dorada crept past, Portia's tor"ue dropped from her neck. Ember's as well. Carrow gazed into nearby cells in disbelief. Every being in the Pravus was losing its tor"ue. "What's happening, Lanthe?"
"She empowers evil, manipulates it. And those tor"ues limited the evil immortals could do."
Just like Ruby and Carrow, Lanthe retained her collar.
Portia already had her glowing palms raised, her face sinister as she controlled some unseen mountain of rock.
The floor vibrated beneath them. Just outside their cell, the ground fissured around a burgeoning stone mass.
Ember, too, prepared to unleash her power. Her eyes were alight, her irises swirling, moving like flames. Fire danced above her palms. When she blasted the glass with heat, Carrow dove for the floor, covering Ruby with her body.
The glass exploded, shards raining over them.
"Ember, damn you!"
Under the unimaginable pressure of Portia's rising rock, the steel divider walls began to crumple. The facility's entire structure shifted, more glass shattering as supports buckled.
More immortals freed...
"Crow, what's happening?" Ruby whimpered beneath her.
"Here, get to your feet." How much longer until the roof collapsed? "We might have to run for it."
When shouting guards advanced, tossing canisters of gas into their cell, Ember emitted streams of fire, popping the cans back at them.
Portia tilted her head at the men. "These mortals need to get stoned." She waved her hand, and a cement chunk from the floor went hurtling at one of them. Carrow covered Ruby's eyes just as it connected with the force of a rocket. The man's head exploded like a watermelon.
Ember said, "Portia, stop showing off! We have business to attend to." She turned to Carrow. "First off, witch, you're going to pay for striking me."
"If you hurt her," Ruby said with her eyes shimmering, "I'll hurt you worse." Carrow jerked Ruby back behind her.
Why was Ember hesitating? She could burn them all to ashes.
"Leave them," Portia said. "The skirmishes are moving outside, and I'm not attending without my mask and claws. We search for them now."
Ember shot Carrow a look of promised pain, then snapped her fingers at Lanthe. "Come."
When Lanthe remained at Carrow's side, Portia glared over her shoulder. "Melanthe, you traitor. May you rot in heaven." She gazed down the corridor. "With your angel. He'll be coming for you."
Once they'd disappeared, Lanthe said, "There went any power we might have hidden behind. And they're right. Thronos will come after me. As will your, er, spouse, once he recovers enough."
Ruby's eyes darted. "I'm scared, Crow."
Carrow lifted the girl back up in her arms. "I know, but I'm not going to let anything happen to you." When Ruby sniffled, Carrow held her gaze. "Look at me. I will get you out of here - I swear it."
Easier said...
Pandemonium reigned in the ward. Ember's flames burned everywhere as she released her trapped Pravus allies. Male immortals carted off flailing females.
Mere feet away, Uilleam the Lykae attacked four of the guards. Though he still wore his tor"ue and couldn't fully turn werewolf, he easily ended the four, biting free one's throat while slashing the others'.
Volos, the leader of the centaurs, trampled anyone in his path, leaving behind pulped corpses. Succubae dragged down mortal guards, raping them in a frenzy. Carrow kept a hand over Ruby's eyes, but their moans rang out as they fed for the first time in weeks.
Lanthe said, "You know, as soon as we step out of this cell, we're in the shit."
"If we can get your tor"ue off, could you do another portal?"
Lanthe had told her she needed to recharge every time she created one. Her expression lit up. "We could walk right out of this place."
"Then we've got to find Fegley." And his thumb. "I think I know where he might be." When the warden had carried Ruby in all those nights ago, he'd entered from a side chamber attached to Chase's office. He could be hidden there now.
"You ready?" Carrow asked.
Lanthe nodded, and they eased out into the maelstrom.
"I told you we'd escape soon," Lothaire grated.
When the building began to shift, Malkom somehow made it to a sitting position, his body in agony. Chase had been right; Malkom had learned much about pain. But he'd endured Chase's tortures, laughing up at him with bloody fangs.
"One way or another, this ends tonight," the vampire said. Whatever being had invaded this place was after the Enemy of Old. In turn, the vampire was pacing, ready for battle - and taunting the being. "I am ready to have done, Dorada! Face me, crone!"
Malkom staggered to his feet as the ground "uaked beneath him. The metal walls began to warp. The glass of his cell couldn't take much more of this pressure. Escape is nigh. He was already envisioning all the ways he'd punish the witch -
His collar abruptly dropped to the ground.
He gazed up. A female of great power was passing his cell. She looked like a walking corpse, surrounded by a pack of Wendigos. She's rid me of the collar?
Without warning, another female, a dark-haired sorceress, appeared outside his cell, raising her flaming palms at him. What the hell -
She shot fire at the glass, shattering it to free him. Before she disappeared with a speed approaching his own, she said, "Go find your wife, demon."
"I - will."
Finally, Malkom would have his revenge on Carrow Graie. One foot in front of the other, half-crazed from his torture, he limped outside.
Chaos. The heat from the fires singed his skin. The groan of twisting metal rang in his ears.