The guard’s heavy footfalls came to a stop when turned to make sure Rowena was following him.
“Ya comin’ or what?” he yelled.
“Yes, sorry.” She hurried to his side. “Where are we going now?”
The guard smirked at her and kept going. They headed down a corridor that seemed to go on forever. After a while, it became clear they were going down. They finally stopped at a solid-looking door.
“We’re here.” A cruel smile formed on his reptilian lips. Rowena didn’t think the day could get any worse, but she might have been wrong. The guard started to open the door, then stopped, turning to Rowena.
“You’re too much of a lady for a job like this,” he said, cackling. Foul breath seeped out of his mouth and mixed with the stale stench in the air, making her gag. Not knowing what to expect as the guard finally opened the huge rusty hinged wooden door. Rowena tried to mentally prepare herself for the worst. She closed her eyes and heard a woman moaning softly. She opened her eyes. Before Rowena could see what was happening inside the room, a woman stepped in front of her blocking her entry. Rowena tried to hide the desperate feeling mounting within her. Having to act so calm when you were falling to pieces inside was taking its toll. She couldn’t get Isobel’s face out of her mind.
“Why, my dear, do you look so pale?” the woman asked.
“Oh, I’m not yet used to the smell.”
“You will, my dear. My name is Agatha. Take a seat if you like. Jonathon will be down soon.” Agatha patted Rowena on the shoulder and guided her to a small wooden stool sitting by the door.
The realization of where Rowena was hit her like an arrow splitting her chest. Thick black chains hung from the walls. There were tables covered with rusty cutting implements sitting in old bloodstains. Claw shaped metal clasps were scattered about on the dirt floor; two steel chairs covered in sharp spikes sat in the opposite corners of the room. A young woman was seated in a chair in the middle of the room. Rowena blinked. She wasn’t merely seated. She was tied to the chair with blood-stained rope.
A torture chamber.
The woman tied to the chair had her head down. Limp red hair matted around her damp face. Beads of sweat and blood glistened as they rolled off of her skin and dripped onto the ground. A thumbscrew had been clamped to the woman’s right hand leaving her thumb a swollen mass of flesh and blood. Two men stood next to her. One wore a black mask, and the other was the one-eyed man from earlier. The masked man attached a clamp to her other thumb. The girl raised her head and winced as he snapped on the device.
Rowena stared, not believing what she was seeing. The poor girl was about to have her other thumb mutilated. Agatha stood with her back to the wall, watching the two men.
The one-eyed man leaned in close to the woman and bared his teeth. “Do not resist us, witch. The greater you resist the more pain we will apply. Got it?” He sneered at the woman, waiting for her to reply. All she did was look him in the eye. “Are you looking at my eye?” he snapped.
The woman took a deep breath. “Where else am I supposed to look?” Her voice was hoarse like Selene’s. Her lips were just as dry. The one-eyed man raised his eyebrows. Agatha shook her head slowly and raised a hand to her white hair to smooth it down. The one-eyed man brought his arm back and slammed his hand hard into the woman’s face sending blood flying from her mouth.
“Do you know how I lost this eye?” He started to pace, still staring at the woman. She shook her head no. “A dirty witch took it from me, that’s how!” His face turned bright red. “I was married to a girl who seemed normal enough. That is until she caught me dancing with another lass. That night I was walkin’ through the woods trying to find my wife who had run off somewhere when I ran right into a branch, poked my eye plumb out of its socket. That evil bitch put a curse on me. Needless to say, we burnt her right up at the stake two days later.” A disgusting smile appeared on his lips. “That’s right,” he said, nodding. “We never got any more trouble out of that one again.”
Rowena shook her head in disgust. He’d used the excuse of witchcraft to kill his own innocent wife. She glanced at Agatha who looked incredibly bored. The one-eyed monster must use the same speech every time he interrogates his helpless victims.
The one-eyed man nodded at the masked man gleefully. The masked man nodded back and stepped toward the woman who was looking at him with a look of sheer terror on her face. A clicking sound filled the air as he tightened the thumbscrew one notch squeezing her flesh. Rowena saw the skin blanch white.
“Now,” the one-eyed man continued. “Do you confess to being a witch?”
The young woman looked up at him and spat in his eye. His fists balled up and he shook them violently in the air. Rowena swallowed hard. How could she stand here and do nothing? Why were they making her watch this? The one-eyed man pulled the girl out of the chair, blood dripping freely from her thumbs then rolling down the side of her dress leaving a bright red trail. He slammed her down with a thud onto a table. She cried out in agony as her back hit the wood. Rowena stood up and cried out for him to stop but Agatha pushed her back into her chair. The brutal men ripped off her dirty shift and threw it onto the ground revealing her naked body, covered with black and blue bruises. Then the masked man picked up a long ornate metal object that was shaped like a closed rosebud. He then pulled at two handles on the end of the device, revealing sharp prongs. He shut the object setting it back into the shape of a rounded triangle and approached the struggling girl with it. When her eyes spotted the torture device in his hands she began to scream, desperately flailing her arms. The one-eyed man held her down. Agatha joined him. The woman’s screams became louder and were becoming choked up with crying as the masked man reached the table. The screaming woman watched in horror as the masked man placed the tool down between the woman’s trembling legs. Agatha pried them open and held them while the man forced the tool into her body. Her pain immediately showed on her face as she gasped and writhed in agony. Her voice began to break off and her eyes rolled backward.
The unbearable pain mercifully knocked her out before the masked man pulled open the handles of the tool which must have opened the sharp spears, slicing through her delicate flesh. Blood spilled out between her legs and onto the table. Rowena couldn’t move. Something had snapped inside her. Her heart seemed to be going too slow. She couldn’t help but think about Isobel and her enduring this madness.
The man removed the tool. Blood and had clumps of red flesh clung to it.
Agatha leaned in close to the masked man. “Any sign of a devil’s implant?”
“No. It will be there. Probably didn’t get in deep enough. We just have to keep looking.” His evil words sickened Rowena. She wondered what they were talking about. The devil’s mark? Sounded like pure nonsense.
The masked man took up a shaving knife and started to scrape the hair off of the unconscious woman’s head. He scraped the dry blade across her skin, removing the hair of the woman’s head in bloody clumps. He then moved onto her pubic area sending streaks of blood trickling. Rowena was thankful the girl was not awake but feared for the time when she would wake up in tremendous pain. If she did wake.
Bleeding heavily, she was dragged toward the far side of the room where a huge sinister iron box stood. Its heavy door gaped open, revealing long metal spikes on either side of its walls. Blood soaked sawdust sat on the dirt floor with a cloud of flies buzzing around it. Rowena tried to move her feet. Just a little tap, but they refused. The men started to place the woman’s limp body into the chamber when a knocking sound sent everybody’s heads turning toward the door. The door burst open as Jonathon stormed into the room, anger written all over his face.