This is a new Round Robin that is being posted to the FK Vals list.
Standard disclaimers apply.

"Nick, thank God!  What's going on?  How did you get here?  What -."

Natalie rushed toward the blond vampire, ignoring everything but the fact
that she wasn't alone - wouldn't have to cope with this nightmare by
herself.

Nick staggered under the onslaught and tried to move away, but Nat flung her
arms around his neck and hung on as she babbled with relief, words tumbling
out in a staccato burst.

"You have no idea what's been going on.  Why did you leave?  How did you
wind up here?  Do you know how to get out?  We have to help Lucien.  How -?"

A short, nasty snarl was her only warning before Nick's fangs plunged deep
into her neck and he began to suck, moaning deep in his throat.

Nat jumped, first at the unexpected assault and then at the sound of the
dungeon door crashing into the stone walls.

Two burly men grabbed Nick's arms and forced his head back until he broke
contact with her neck.  He struggled to break free, but the enforcers were
too strong.  Nat would have collapsed, but strong hands gripped her
shoulders and held her up as her head swam and her vision blurred.

One of the arms moved until it pressed uncomfortably against the bottom of
her breasts effectively pinning her in place.  The other hand pushed her
blood-streaked hair away from her neck and pressed harshly on the reopened
punctures.  The hand was removed and Natalie shuddered as Anonda's tongue
lapped twice at the fresh blood seeping onto her neck.

The enforcer took Nat's chin in her fingers and turned her head so that she
was facing the unpleasant sight of her blood dripping from the corner of her
captor's mouth.  The dark haired woman laughed.

"Yes, I can still read your thoughts - although I need no special access to
see what you're thinking right now.   But I do find it more...instructive to
read my victims from the source.  Even a brief exposure to my fingers could
muddle the impressions of your blood."

She leaned forward and placed her lips on Natalie's throat, licking the skin
slowly until the wounds closed.  She moved away with a sigh, regret evident
in her violet eyes.  <Under different circumstances you and I...>

" But that just isn't possible," she interrupted herself briskly as she held
the medical examiner at arms' length.

"And I'm sure you have a million questions.  I'll try to answer the one's
you asked before Nicholas took his little...snack."

She stared at the blond vampire, sagging now without resistance in his
bodyguard's grasp, for a moment and nodded twice, obviously pleased at what
she saw.

"Nicholas has been my...guest since he so mysteriously left Toronto.  I've
put him on a very strict diet."  She crossed the room and lifted his chin
until he was forced to make eye contact.  "Haven't I, my dear?"

When she got no response, Anonda ground her lips, still coated with
Natalie's blood, across Nick's mouth, sliding back and forth until his
tongue snaked desperately between his parted lips to lick at the partially
congealed liquid.  Nat could hear the same low moan he had made when he was
sucking at her throat.

The chief enforcer playfully kissed the tip of his nose and smiled
indulgently at him.

"Lagniappe, Nicholas," she purred, her unconscious use of the Creole word
for "treat" revealing how totally she'd absorbed the culture of New Orleans,
the city she'd adopted as her home centuries ago.

Anonda turned toward Natalie and began to lecture brightly.

"Nicholas has been limited to about 50 cc's of human blood a day.  He can
choose to have it all at once, as he just did with you, or space it out over
several hours.  But he must drink it or it will be force fed to him.  He's
responded very well to his change in diet.  I believe he's even learned to
enjoy it more than all that bovine swill he so self-righteously drank for
the last century or so.  Of  course, he is somewhat weakened..."

Natalie remembered him staggering when she threw herself at him and realized
that "weak" was an understatement.  Even when he hadn't fed in days, as part
of her various attempts at a cure, he had been able to withstand bullets or
subdue muscle-bound  criminals.  Tears filled her eyes at the thought of him
so helpless.  How would he be able to get them out of here?  He couldn't
even stand upright.  She gasped out loud as she realized that she couldn't
count on him to help at all.  Even if he wanted to help, he wouldn't have
the strength - and he'd probably be more focussed on her blood than on
getting out anyway.  She would have to free both of them.  A few of her
tears spilled down her cheeks to be brushed away by cool fingers that
smelled of jasmine and honeysuckle.

The slap rocked her sideways.  She knew that Anonda had pulled it or it
would have broken her neck, but that didn't make it any less painful.  She
staggered to the wall and slid to the ground, not caring that the garnet
colored silk blouse she had chosen to wear with her black velvet evening
pants was shredded by the damp stone, exposing her back to the sharp corners
as she sagged down the wall.  If she didn't sit down she would fall down.
She wound up sitting on some wet, stinking straw, her head resting on her
bent knees.  Had they not cleaned this place out after the last occupants?
Nat decided not to think about the state they might have been in when they
left.

Nick struggled feebly in his guards' hands, but made no serious protest as
he was led to the opposite wall and chained in place.

The chief enforcer loomed over Nat and kicked hard at her left knee, again
backing off just enough to keep from smashing the bone.  But Nat's years of
medical experience told her she wouldn't easily use the leg for quite some
time.

"Do not ignore me when I speak."

Natalie blinked back tears of pain and stammered, "I - I - I didn't -."

Anonda grabbed her heavy chestnut hair and pulled her head back to stare for
a long moment into her eyes before shoving her face forward until it smacked
into her knees, pain from her broken nose joining the agony of her injured
leg.  She snuffled, and gagged on the blood that filled her throat.  Her
stomach finally rebelled and emptied its contents at her feet.

Anonda turned away in disgust, muttering, "And he would replace Divia with
you."

At the door, the chief enforcer turned around. "Sweet dreams, children."
She cooed brightly.

The darkness was absolute as the door slammed shut behind her.

Natalie didn't dream.  She didn't even sleep.  Afraid to test Nick's
willpower any further, and unable to see in the pitch blackness, she stayed
huddled next to the wall, retching occasionally as her stomach rejected the
blood that still dripped sluggishly from her nose.  She thought of the
irony: her body couldn't wait to purge what Nick craved beyond all else -
what LaCroix prized more than any wealth.  Could she embrace so radical a
change, go against all her mortal instincts?  She didn't know.  But now was
not the time to think about it.  If she didn't get out of here the question
would be moot, that much she was sure of.

She tried without success to find a position that didn't hurt either her
nose or her knee.

The cell door opened with a bang presumably signaling that night had fallen
again.

<How time flies when you're having fun> Nat thought sarcastically.

After the total absence of light, even the weak glow from the corridor
caused her to blink.

Anonda strode in trailed by the two hulks from last night, each of them
carrying a lantern.

Natalie struggled to stand, not willing to cower in front of this...fiend.
Even standing on one leg, which was all she could manage, was better than
lying there curled up in ball of self-pity.  She put as much courage as she
could find into her voice and, leaning against the cold, damp wall for
support, snapped, "Was last night what passes for vampire PMS?"

She flinched as one of the guards raised his lantern and the chief enforcer
reached toward her face.  But she merely turned it from side to side, noting
the swollen nose and blackend eyes before she reached down and squeezed
Nat's very tender left knee. Anonda chuckled at the strangled gasp of pain
it produced.

"No.  It's what passes for vampire revenge.  And I've only started to take
mine."

She jerked the medical examiner away from the wall by her arm and dragged
her across the room, ignoring the gasps that turned to screams as the
tendons in her knee tore.

When they were in front of Nick, Anonda grabbed Natalie's left hand and
sliced across her index finger with one of her fangs.  She held it out
toward the chained vampire, a sly smile flickering around her mouth.  Nick
shook his head.

Natalie was horrified at how he looked.  She was sure he hadn't been this
bad last night.  But tonight his eyes were sunken and red rimmed and he
looked like he weighed no more than a hundred pounds.

"Nick -."

Anonda ended her sentence with a quick jerk on her hair.  Glad it wasn't
another squeeze of her knee, Nat remained silent.

Anonda milked the bleeding finger until blood flowed in a steady stream.
Nat watched the struggle on Nick's face, closing her eyes when she saw that
he would lose it.  His hand shot forward and jerked to a stop at the end of
the chain.  His eyes pleaded for Nat's forgiveness, but when Anonda brought
the finger within his reach he grabbed it and thrust it into his mouth,
sucking greedily for the few seconds he was allowed.

Anonda pulled Nat's finger away and pushed her head to one side quipping,
"Time for a little more female bonding," as she opened the jugular and took
a great gulp of the warm, vibrant blood. She held it in her mouth, savoring
the taste as though it were the finest wine, swallowing only a drop at a
time, prolonging the ecstasy until she had gleaned all the knowledge from it
she needed.

The coroner wasn't quite ready for the denouement of this little drama, she
decided, licking her lips to get the last of the ruby drops onto her tongue.
There was still too much defiance and not enough pain and fear in her blood.
The woman was much more interesting than she had expected.  Not that it made
any difference in the long run - the plan would remain the same - but at
least she would find the next few days...pleasant.

Her fury, never very far from the surface even after almost two millennia,
exploded with a violent shove that sent Natalie crashing to the stone floor.
The chief enforcer raged silently at the fates - no, at General Lucius
Divius - who had shattered her eternity so completely in that tomb in Egypt.

What did a few days matter against the centuries she had lived without
Divia.  Her mother, bound to her by blood.  Her tutor, revealing the power
of the darkness.  And her lover, accepting the first hesitant overtures and
then demanding more, taking everything, until she had surpassed her teacher.

And all of it snuffed out in an instant, she thought bitterly.  Destroyed by
the only shred of conscience Lucius had ever possessed.  She would never
forget it: one moment anticipating her lover's return to share her triumph
through word and touch and blood, and the then writhing on the floor, their
link shattered in a blinding flash of agony.

It had taken her decades to function completely, centuries to perfect her
plan for revenge, and more than a millennium to gain the power she would
need to implement it.  Her first plan was simple: she had volunteered to
become an enforcer hoping catch Lucius in a violation of the rules flagrant
enough to warrant his death.  But he had grown in power and cunning more
quickly than she had, so she waited, amassing IOUs and learning secrets.
Once Nicholas began to regularly flout the rules - she glared venomously at
him, hanging from his chains - she assumed that would give her the excuse
she needed to kill both of them, but the Council still wouldn't allow her to
act.  Lucius had become very powerful indeed.

Finally, she had taken the job of chief enforcer from the - late -
incumbent.   Her years of courting support and honing her power made it
impossible for the Council to move against her this time.  So they permitted
her to stay in power, knowing what she wanted, but warning to do nothing
outside the restrictions of her office.

More than willing to play their game, her first act had been to detain and
"interrogate" Nicholas de Brabant to learn the extent of his violation of
the community's rules.  Her second was to bring Lucius' mortal pet here to
join the former Crusader - an opportunity to learn more about their
"friendship" and how it had threatened the community with exposure.

She smiled with absolute delight as she remembered the look on Lucius' face
as he watched her blood rape his inconsequential little inamorata - a
legitimate, if rarely used, perquisite of a chief enforcer.

She reached down absently and grabbed a handful of Nat's hair, pulling her
across the floor on her back.  When they reached the opposite wall, Anonda
jerked her to her feet and stood her facing the unyielding stone, her arms
spread wide on the wall.  The abrasions on her back were inflamed and
covered in dirt, seeping fluid more clear than red.  Anonda ripped Nat's
shredded blouse away from her skin saying, "We wouldn't want any of this to
get into the scrapes now, would we?"

She reached around and yanked the rest of the material free and dropped it
on the floor.

"Might as well even out your body temperature," Anonda growled as she jerked
stained slacks down Nat's legs, ripping them off around her ankles rather
than taking the time to slide them over her feet.  The enforcer deliberately
slammed her leg into Natalie's injured knee and let her crumple to the
ground.

Nat shivered in the cold air as she rolled into a ball.

Anonda chuckled softly.  Oh, yes.  Her first two acts were going exceedingly
well, indeed.  And what of the third?  That would be truly spectacular.
After all, her mother's blood still flowed deep in her soul.

She thought for a moment about Lucius.  What would he choose, she wondered.
And how would he live with the choice?

End Part 9