The strange vulture/parrot hybrid opened its beak and trilled another bit of song at her. It peered at her with simple animal curiosity. Giselle smiled and held out an arm. The gentlest of mental nudges caused the creature to flap its wings and move from the foot of the bed to Giselle’s extended forearm. She cooed at the creature and gently stroked the back of its head. It tilted its head again and trilled another lovely burst of birdsong.

Giselle wrapped her fingers around its neck. Its eyes bulged a little and it emitted a little chirp as Giselle cooed reassurance. Then it squawked as she tightened her grip and began to twist. Panic set in and it raised talons to slash at her, but another mental nudge stilled the act of self-defense. And Giselle stared into the creature’s bulging eyes as she snapped its neck with excruciating slowness.

There, she thought.

Something relaxed inside her and she studied the dead bird’s limp body with grim satisfaction, puzzling over why she felt so good about killing so helpless a creature. An impulse caused her to look at Ursula. She imagined taking Ursula’s neck in her hands and doing to her what she’d done to the bird. She licked her lips and felt her nipples stiffen. Then the girl stirred in her sleep, groaning and stretching out her body.

Giselle stared at the tender, exposed flesh of the girl’s slender neck. So pale. So lovely. She watched the rise and fall of her breasts and thought of how they felt in her mouth, in her hands. And she sighed, knowing she still could not kill Ursula. The girl would require a still greater level of discipline, that’s all.

She got out of the bed and carried the dead bird out to the balcony. The other world’s sun bathed her body in heat, dispelling the cold that had seeped into her bones from the open torture chamber. She peered over the railing at the bustle of activity in the rapidly expanding slave community everyone called Razor City. Here was something of which she could be proud. Her vision for the community far exceeded in scope and daring anything the Master had accomplished with Below. There were many more hovels along the perimeter of the community now, with more being erected every day to accomodate the steady influx of new slaves. The large marketplace was open for business. Numerous other buildings were under construction. It was becoming a real city, albeit a primitive one, like something from a twisted version of the Middle Ages. The community’s name derived from the high, razor-tipped fences that defined its borders. Giselle loved the sound of it. Razor City. It sounded like a place where nightmares would go to live. So apt. The endless suffering of its pitiful denizens would exceed the suffering of any oppressed group in human history, honoring the death gods enough to make her powerful almost beyond reckoning.

She tossed the dead bird over the railing and returned to her quarters. The nude revelers remained unconscious and for a moment Giselle considered killing every one of them, such was her distress at the tainted condition of her quarters. She picked up the spear and pried the dead slave’s head from its tip. She tossed the head aside, examined the sharp and blood-coated tip, and imagined plunging it through the hearts of all present. The brutality would afford her a few moments of cold satisfaction, but she decided against it. Several of the sleeping Apprentices were very good at what they did, and capable Apprentices were significantly harder to replace than slaves.

And anyway, she knew she was only delaying the inevitable.

She braced herself with an intake of breath and stepped through the open entrance to the darkened torture chamber. The cold seeped into her bones again. She muttered a spell and the ranks of candles grew flames. Her gaze was drawn immediately to the limp figure splayed across the bottom of the dangling cage. No one else was in the room and there was nothing obviously amiss. She still couldn’t recall opening the chamber, but she guessed Ursula had coerced her into doing it somehow.

Giselle moved deeper into the chamber and the figure at the bottom of the cage stirred and turned toward the sound of her approach. Gwendolyn lifted her head and several tangled golden locks fell across her face. She smiled weakly through lips puffy and coated with dried blood.

“Why, it’s the great usurper. What a privilege it is to be in your presence, Mistress.” She laughed, a ragged sound followed by a deep, hacking cough. “Come to finish me off, have you? Where’s your kept girl, then? I’d think she’d want to be here for this.”

Gwendolyn’s flesh was covered with bruises and livid scars, many of which pulsed with active infections. Patches of abraded skin leaked blood and pus. She was missing an ear, a nipple, and several toes and fingers. There were multiple burn marks on her abdomen and thighs. And her pussy had been sewn partially shut. Giselle had not participated in any of these tortures, but she had been present for most of them, observing in a detached manner as Ursula enjoyed herself. But her lover’s endless abuse of the prisoner had become tiresome, having dragged on for weeks beyond the point at which the former Apprentice should’ve been put out of her misery.

Giselle smiled and moved closer to the cage, adjusting her grip on the spear as she worked to decide on the best possible angle for a kill thrust. “Your tormentor is passed out on my bed. A touch too much wine last night, I’m afraid.”

Something flickered in Gwendolyn’s eyes as she watched the bloody spear tip move closer. The instinctive fear of one who senses impending death, perhaps. But that impression was belied by the small smile that dimpled the corners of her puffy lips. And she didn’t retreat as the spear tip passed through cage bars and touched a spot between her breasts. Giselle’s body tensed as her hands tightened on the spear shaft. The girl was making it easy for her, almost offering herself up for sacrifice. Which should not have been surprising. She had suffered immensely. Almost anyone in her position would welcome the release of death.

And yet…

That smile.

Giselle frowned. “Something is wrong.”

Gwendolyn’s smile broadened, displaying bloody gums and cracked and chipped teeth. “You don’t know the half of it, Mistress.” Another ragged laugh, followed by another whooping cough. She spat blood. Then she spoke in a singsong tone: “I know something you don’t.”

Instinct told her to ignore the doomed girl’s vague insinuations. This was likely nothing more than one last mind-fuck, an empty game designed to delay the impending end of her life a few minutes more. She pressed the tip of the spear forward a millimeter or two, piercing pale flesh and drawing forth a trickle of blood that spilled along the girl’s protruding rib cage before dripping through cage bars to splash the stone floor below. Gwendolyn winced as the spear tip entered her flesh, but that damnable smile barely faltered.

“I don’t think you know anything.” Giselle twisted the spear tip, widening the gash between Gwendolyn’s breasts. A thicker stream of blood flowed over the tip, fresh gore commingling with dried red flakes. “This is just a last-ditch shot at saving your ass.”

Gwendolyn winced again and gritted her teeth as the spear tip continued to twist and delve deeper. “You fucked up when you killed Ms. Wickman.”

Giselle arched an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”

“The tattoo on your back is lovely. It’s funny. Usually the only tattoos you can’t remember getting involve massive amounts of tequila and a road trip to Tijuana.” Gwendolyn smiled again as the spear tip stopped twisting. “Got your attention, did I?”

Giselle’s heart pounded. “What do you know about the tattoo?”

“Oh, a lot. I wonder if Ursula told you I was Ms. Wickman’s favorite, hmm?” Gwendolyn pushed the spear away and sat up, making the stout chain groan as the cage swayed slightly. She pressed her face between cage bars and leered at Giselle. “She told me things. Secrets. Tell me, Giselle, what do you know of the Order of the Dragon?”