Page 70 of Depravity

“Crawl.” He orders before he starts walking off again.

I try to keep up. I really do.

My hands and knees can’t move fast enough as that leather around my neck tugs and tugs.

I can’t look up or around, I’m too humiliated by this entire thing. We pass by enough people to be more than aware that I’m on display here.

My breasts hang down, straining against the latex. My stomach is mercifully held flat, but my lower half…shame heats my cheeks as I realise that all of me, all of my pussy and my arse and my most intimate areas are visible for anyone to gawp at.

My hair hangs down over my left shoulder, and a few strands end up stuck against my lips.

I wonder what he thinks, what he feels. Is he enjoying this power play? This humiliation? I bet he is. I bet he spent all day planning this, planning how to make me pay for what I did to him.

As we enter a huge, cavernous hall he stops. I take the moment to try to get my breath back. My arms are shaking, my knees feel bruised.

“Do you see them?” He asks.

I don’t want to look up, I don’t want to see whoever is there, but I know he will hurt me more if I don’t. I lift my head, and what I see renders me utterly speechless.

“Wha-wha-what are they?” I stammer.

It’s clear what they are. I just can’t process them.

Skulls seem to line every inch of the walls. They’re on little plinths, all neatly on display. There must be hundreds and thousands of them, all circling us, all leering back. Some are still rotting down, some have fine golden lines trailing all over them as if they’ve been shattered and then glued back together.

But some are literally gilded. They glow gold in the candlelight, making them even more eerie.

In the very centre there’s a great column. All around it, these skulls are jewel encrusted. With neat little inscriptions as if these ones are worth more than all the others.

“Lifers.” Conrad says beside me.

“Whaat?”

He turns his head, meeting my gaze and this time, there’s no amusement in his eyes, just that harsh brutal menace. “Those who serve for life are immortalised here.” He states.

This isn’t immortalisation. This is subjugation. They’re keeping them as objects, even beyond the grave.

“Why, why are some gold and some…” my voice trails off as I decide I don’t actually want to know the answer.

“They did well.” Conrad explains. “They learned their place, served their master’s loyally.”

I blink back, then stare at a skull near us that is literally rotting. The eyes are gone, but there’s a tendril of greying hair coming down from the top of the head.

“They didn’t.” Conrad says right in my ear, answering my unspoken question.

I pull my face away from him, fighting the rising bile. I can practically taste the smell of that flesh on my tongue.

Conrad grabs my face, dragging me a few metres until we’re right up by the ornate column. “That’s where we will be.” He says.

“What?” I gasp. What the fuck is he talking about?

“The Blakes.” He says pointedly. “My family. We all serve the Brethren. Some of us through choice, some of us through action, and some through force. When we die, we two will remain here, we Blake’s never leave Oblivion.”

I blink back in horror. Maybe it would be better to be cast aside after all. At least if I’m no longer a Blake, then I won’t beput on display. But I doubt Conrad would do me the generosity of a nice grave.

He lifts his arm, pointing to a particularly fancy skull, one with huge rubies for eyes. “My mother.” He says with a hint of what could be love, as if he is capable of feeling such an emotion.

But I stare at her, at what remains of her. I know little about his parents, only what my grandfather and my aunt talked about. I know they died when Magnus was fifteen, that Magnus brought Conrad and their younger brother up while somehow managing to keep hold of Oblivion and all the family wealth. I know Devin is off on some mission for the Brethren that no one seems to know anything about.

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