Her nails raked down Mildred’s spine, leaving bloody furrows.
Unable to help her friend, Krysty thrashed about in the bed, frantic to get loose. Slamming back and forth in the chair, Mildred tried to avoid the touch of her tormentor. Finally, the madam walked away, and tiny droplets of blood trickled down Mildred’s back to mix with the fluid on the dirty floor.
Weeping uncontrollably, Mildred started banging her head on the chair, her shoulders shaking with shame and rage.
“Now the fun begins,” Sophie announced, laughing happily, fumbling in the closet to extract a set of long leather whips.
“Now, which slut to tame first?” Sophie said thoughtfully, chewing a fingernail. “Red, or shorty, both look so nice. Oh, I cannot wait to hear your screams for mercy. Speak up, who’d like to taste the lash first?”
“E-eat sh-shit, bitch,” Mildred taunted, her splayed fingers clawing the air.
Sophie contorted her features into a hideous scowl and strode toward the helpless physician. “Get ready, my pretty,” she growled, clawed hands reaching out for her prisoner.
Unexpectedly, Mildred screamed in defiance, and her hands came free from the broken arm of the chair, which she had been working on all this time. Sophie stepped back, and Mildred expertly swung her arm about to drive the splintery end of a dowel directly into the kidney of the woman.
Gasping in shock, Sophie fell to the floor, blood gushing from the wound. Snarling in anger, Mildred leaned over and beat the mutie on the temple with the solid chair arm, the skull bone audibly cracking.
Throwing away the makeshift club, Mildred went to work on the rest of the knots. When the last rope yielded, the doctor rose from the chair and shuffled over to Krysty. At the bedside table, the physician poured some water on her hands from a ceramic mug to clean away the filth, then smashed the jug and used the sharp shards to cut her friend loose.
“How?” Krysty began to ask, her hair flexing wildly on the stained pillows.
“I pissed on the plastic rope to make it slippery,” she explained, finishing one arm and starting on the other. “Got one hand free while she was amusing herself, then broke off the arm of the chair when I was banging my head. Come on, let’s find our stuff.”
“And where the others are,” Krysty said, walking to the closet where the madam had stored her whips.
Inside hung a collection of sexual devices the likes of which Krysty could only guess about. It also held their clothes, and knives, but not their backpacks or blasters. Dressing quickly, they searched the bedroom and found a stash of flintlocks and pouches of black powder in a bottom drawer of the mahogany armoire.
“Have to make do,” Mildred grumbled unhappily, hefting the muzzleloader and checking the spring that drove the flint onto the flash pan. “Damnation, this piece of crap is going to misfire half the time. The flint is as blunt as a baron’s wit.”
“New flints,” Krysty said, and brought over a cardboard box of the sharpened stones.
The women easily repaired the blasters, and armed themselves with as many as they could comfortably carry two in their belts, one in each boot and one at the small of their backs. Fully armed, they listened at the door and heard only the sounds of muttering voices and soft cries of pleasure.
Going to the window, they looked at the ville belowwinding cobblestoned streets, red tile roofs and swimming pools now used to store drinking water.
“This was a resort hotel once,” Mildred declared, a blaster in hand as she peeked out the shutters. “I know the chain.”
“Appears to be a pirate base now,” Krysty added.
“Maybe their main base?”
“Could be. But if it is, then Ryan and the others will be with the baron.”
“There,” Mildred said. “That fancy place on the hill. It’s got to be the baron’s mansion.”
“Quiet,” Krysty whispered, leaning into the ocean wind.
Mildred tried to hear what had caught her attention, but could only discern some faint cheering. Glancing around, the crowd noises seemed to be coming from a crumbling sports arena with raised bleachers and a grandstand.