No Pain, No Reign

“I’ve procrastinated for so long. I’ve wrestled with my conscience. Should I do this tonight? Should I bring this lazy bastard into my home? Should I make him feel my pain? The answer was not just a resounding yes, but a hell fucking yeah!” The grating, raspy voice of the purple-skinned witch Dollhouse awakened Ivan Keith from the shadows of sleep. His head throbbed and pounded like rapid fire boxing blows. The water in his stinging eyes ebbed and flowed. His body weighed down on him like an elephant sitting on his slowly rising chest.

When the Sheriff of Savage Duck County tried to move, the steel bindings in his ankles and wrists cut into him like an executioner’s axe. He laid on an uncomfortable metal table in a T position and struggled some more, but to no avail and only more pain. “Don’t fight it,” warned Dollhouse as she scratched her long, wart-infested nose. The wrinkles in her visage coupled with the shadows brought on by her pointed hat gave her a constant resting bitch face, which only made Ivan’s heart race even further.

“You can’t keep me here forever, old lady,” said Ivan in his southern drawl. “I’m taking you into custody once I get off this here contraption.”

Dollhouse cackled and coughed while slapping her bony knees for extra effect. Quickly reverting back to her resting bitch face, she pointed her elongated finger and sneered, “Nobody’s looking for you, Sheriff Keith. You’ve fucked over so many people that they don’t give two shits if you live or die by my hands. Always drowning your sorrows in beer rather than facing the harsh realities of your line of work. I could have used a savior when my daughter was taken from this world. You did nothing about it but drink…and drink…and drink…and drink!”

The last of Ivan’s stinging tears rolled down his face and his vision became clear enough to see that he was in a laboratory of some kind. Tables full of bubbling potions, tools and devices covered in blood lying about, shackles holding rotted black skeletons, and even a randomly loose eyeball turned this seemingly ordinary hideout into Ivan’s personal hell. He wanted to scream, but his throat felt as though he swallowed a bone saw, so why bother with even more pain?

“Listen, lady…I don’t know who your daughter is…I get lots of cases…I’m overworked…maybe if you jogged my memory…”

Dollhouse flipped an oversized witch on the rocky wall and sent a lightning storm of pain throughout Ivan’s body. His nerves lit up like nuclear heat. Schizophrenic laughter rang throughout his head. Visions of blood-soaked monsters stained his eyes. Ivan finally did scream out and his sore throat felt as though he was being decapitated with a hot blade. Every part of his body, physical and psychological, was corrosively melting before his very eyes. And then Dollhouse pulled the switch back to its original position.

Ivan took a few heavy breaths as sweat trickled down his skin like a heavy rainstorm. “What…the hell…was that?!”

“I’ve been working on this device for years. The worst kind of pain imaginable and I brought it to life. Water-boarding? Boring! Musical torture? Better, but still boring! Iron maidens? Brutal as hell, but boring as shit! If I’m going to get some answers from a filthy liar like you, I might as well get a little bit of enjoyment out of it. What can I say? I feel like I’m a hundred years old. Got to have some fun while I can!” Dollhouse gave another wheezing cackle, which sent ice cold anxiety through Ivan’s body.

“You’re insane!” cried Sheriff Keith. “You really think this is going to work? I told you, I don’t know a damn thing about your daughter! And even if I did, I wouldn’t think twice about turning her over to CPS if she’s got a sick mother like you!”

With a thumbs down gesture, Dollhouse made a game show buzzer sound and hacked, “Wrong answer, dip shit!” before flipping the switch again. The feeling of bathing in hell’s lava while demons and skeletons laughed at his misery invaded Ivan’s body and mind again. His heart thumped so quickly that he was on the verge of cardiac arrest. His brain felt like it was bleeding badly enough to give him an atom bomb of a stroke. Dollhouse flipped the switch back to normal and Ivan once again breathed heavily enough to give him a Buddha belly. Oceans of sweat did nothing to cool him off.

“You still feel overworked or should I flip the switch again?”

“No! Please don’t!” begged Ivan with cascading eyeballs. “Oh my god…that was just…” His heart refused to slow down and his stomach refused to deflate, making putting together a sentence virtually impossible. “If you…tell me who…your daughter is…I’ll help…you find…justice…”

“No, you won’t. You’re just going to cast her aside like you did everybody else. Being tortured is your only motivator. And I’m sure if I just let you go and do your job, you’ll find Isabel’s husband and string him up for the public to see. I don’t want you to just find her husband. I want you to want to find him!”

Ivan’s breathing lessened somewhat and his sentences became more coherent. “Ma’am…I didn’t get into law enforcement so that I could laze about. Nobody does. But sometimes, cases come pouring in and we’re stretched too thin. If you were to kill me now, that would mean less personnel to help you find your daughter’s murderer. I probably should stop drinking so much, I agree with you on that.”

Dollhouse folded her stick-like arms across her dark-robed chest. “I want to believe you, Mr. Keith. I really do. But the fact is…you’ll stick up for your own kind even when they’re wrong. Law enforcement always does. Your coworkers could commit genocide and you’d still kiss their grimy cowboy boots.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Isabel’s husband was a cop under your jurisdiction.”

Ivan’s eyes widened at the revelation. “Wait a minute…you mean…one of my own guys killed your daughter? That’s a little slanderous, don’t you think?”

“You see?!” Dollhouse croaked, causing Sheriff Keith to nearly jump out of his skin. “This is exactly what I’m talking about! Paid vacations! Severance packages! House arrest in a lovely seaside hotel! Cops never get the punishment they deserve because shit heads like you keep covering for them!”

“You think it’s as easy as tossing them in a cell?!” shouted Ivan. “There’s a whole power structure at work here, lady! You’re damn right we protect each other! Ratting out one of our own could mean the end of our careers, or even our fucking lives! I’m not taking that risk just because of a conspiracy theory you’re peddling out!”

“So in other words…you won’t help me…because you’re scared? You look so tough in that cowboy hat. You look so cool in that trench coat and those blue jeans. You look like a real cowboy. But in reality…you’re smuggling BB pellets underneath that zipper. Look at it this way, slick: if there really is a power structure at work here, you’re fucked either way. It’s all a matter of which way of dying you’d rather face. You could get shot by your own kind…or you could go through a lifetime of agony on my table!”

Ivan gulped so hard that one would swear he was chugging another bottle.

“Truth is, Sheriff Keith, I could keep that switch flipped until time itself is standing still. Sure, I’ll run up my electricity bill, but when nobody knows where the fuck you are, you don’t pay bills. Like I said before, nobody’s looking for you, Ivan. Nobody’s looking for me either. Even if you did report me to your buddies, they’d never believe that a hundred year old witch tortured you all this time. Come to think of it, they’d die of laughter before you died of ratting out your fellow cops.”

Ivan sighed deeply and tried to relax on the table, but obviously to no avail. He hated to admit it, but everything she said was right. No holes in her logic, but there would be a bigger hole where Ivan’s heart used to be if he endured another round of torture table madness. Then again…

“Let’s say I do help you find your daughter’s killer and bring him to justice. If my fellow cop is a killer…what does that make you, Dollface, or whatever the hell your name is? You built this table because you wanted justice. But in reality, you’re every bit as bad as your daughter’s murderer. Maybe you’re worse. At least when Isabel was shot, it was over with a quickness!”

“Ah-ha! So you admit it! I knew it! I bloody knew it!” boasted Dollhouse as she pumped her arm up and down in victory.

“Okay, fine, so you know who your daughter’s killer is! Why don’t you put HIM on the table instead of me?! Sure, he’s long gone by now, but I’m sure if you spent as much time finding him as you did me, you’d get your justice a hell of a lot faster! I’m just a middleman, for god’s sake! Torturing me isn’t going to do shit!”

Dollhouse sighed and held her face in her hands. “You know what? You’re right. You’ve been right all along. You’re about as useful as an asshole on my elbow. I should have never drugged you and brought you here. Yes, you’re a sheriff, but you probably got that job by putting the right body parts in your mouth. I should just let you go.”

Ivan breathed a sigh of relief, confident his debating skills have saved his life.

“Then again…if you just admitted to being useless…then that makes you an accomplice!” snickered Dollhouse before flipping the switch and making Ivan scream loudly enough to loosen dust from the walls and ceiling. The pain of a thousand gallons of acid and a million knives being poured on his body was back again, but for a much more eternal period of time. His jaw stretched beyond its means as he screamed. His tongue fell out of his head. His heart, brain, and eyeballs were time bombs ready to detonate. His bowels flooded badly enough to sag his jeans around his ankles. His underwear stunk like a junkyard after his bladder exploded.

In the end, Ivan Keith didn’t stand for something, so he laid down for everything.

Where's My Damn Money?

“This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose, you fucking lazy bitch!” said the deep and dark schizophrenic voice in Pia Caine’s mind. The humanoid cat would kneel to the stone floor of her laboratory and clutch her paws over her head. Was this all in her imagination? Was she going crazy? Would she be destined for a trip to Bedlam? The thought of her fuzzy arms locked in a straightjacket brought tears to Pia’s eyes and a quivering in her jaw. She managed to get some spittle and tears on her pink dress, but she wiped them away and tried to pull herself to her feet using one of the many tables in her lab.

Pia convulsed in fear while gazing through teary eyes at the many chemicals and potions scattered across her tables. The fact that she had a surplus of these items and nobody was buying shattered her heart into millions of pieces. She pulled a satchel out of her dress and spilled the few gold coins she had across one of the tables. Baby steps towards paying her debt: that’s all it amounted to. The grating voice in her head had no patience for baby steps. In fact, it blurted out, “Where’s my damn money!” and Pia was jittering on the floor once again.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?!” Pia begged. “I’ll get you your payment! I swear! Just give me some more time!”

“You had all the time in the world and you came up with chump change!” belted the voice once again. Only this time, when Pia lifted her trembling kitty head out of her paws, she saw a slender figure covered in a black robe and hood standing only a few feet away from her. That must have been him: Chetty Claymore, elven necromancer and relentless dunner. He slowly paced towards the spilled coins and scooped them up in his hands while counting at a brisk pace with his elongated finger. “It’s not enough!” he shouted.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Claymore! I really am!” sobbed Pia. She pulled herself to her feet yet again, but almost lost her equilibrium. “Business has been slow lately and…”

After Chetty pocketed the gold coins, his hand glowed with purple energy before he grabbed Pia around the throat and hoisted her high in the air, booted legs kicking and all. “No excuses!” he bellowed. “I saved your life on that battlefield and you repay me with the bare minimum! Unacceptable, you stupid whore!” Chetty threw Pia to the ground and left her coughing violently, even spitting up a little bit of blood.

Once Pia was able to regain her oxygen (albeit with raspy breaths), Chetty leaned down and grabbed her by the nape of her neck so that their eyes could lock on each other. He angrily whispered, “I gave you life and I can take it away. As a necromancer, I’m well within my abilities to do that.”

Without even a modicum of struggle against Chetty’s grip and with trembling in her jaw, Pia asked, “How is that supposed to get you your money? If I’m dead, you’ll have nobody to pay you back.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart,” said Chetty has he tightened his grip and earned a yelp out of his victim. “If I don’t get the money from you and your so-called business…I can always get it from somewhere else. Just because the debtor dies, doesn’t mean the debt goes away. Surely, you have other members of your feline family who are willing to foot the bill for their lazy clan member. Maybe your mother. Maybe your father. Maybe your siblings. No matter where the money comes from...” Chetty leaned closer to make his final point. “I own the Caine family!”

As Chetty Claymore chuckled evilly, Pia pictured her elderly parents at the mercy of this madman. They were just feeble felines who snuggled in bed and rested their old bones next to the fire. And now this deranged elf was going to take full advantage of them. He could slap them. He could punch them. He could even do something involving his genitals. The more Chetty cackled, the louder Pia hissed in response. She took a huge bite out of the necromancer’s nose and the scream-inducing pain forced him to let go.

Pia crab-walked backwards in disbelief at what she had done. As she pulled herself up using the table’s edge, she assessed the damage with wide kitty eyes. Once Chetty pulled his hand away from his nose, he revealed a chunk had been dangling from his face and blood was pouring like a faucet. “I will teach you some respect, you disgusting harlot!” he shouted.

The necromancer raised his pointy hands in the air and summoned more purple energy. From this bright radiation, he shot a skull projectile at Pia, who dove over one of her tables out of the way of the blast. “You can’t hide from me forever!” he roared.

“I don’t need to hide!” sassed Pia. “Stay away from my goddamn family!” She picked up one of her magical potions and tossed it on Chetty’s face. The glass shards combined with the acidic content turned the necromancer’s face into rare hamburger meat. He screeched in agony and threw purple energy skulls blindly around the lab.

The potions exploded into wildfire upon contact with the projectiles. But instead of getting the hell out of her laboratory to safety, Pia used the flames as a metaphor for her anger and leaped into Chetty. She struggled to feed his face to the open flames, but the elf pushed back just as hard.

“You don’t get it, do you?” said Chetty during the struggle. “You think killing me is going to end your debt? I’m just one small part of a bigger agency. If not me, then someone else will come knocking at your door! And another! And another! Or maybe they don’t have to knock at your door. Maybe they can get inside that pretty little head of yours!”

Pia loosened her grip in contemplation of Chetty’s point. This brief opening allowed Chetty to bite down on Pia’s hand and draw enough blood to heighten the flames around her laboratory. The feline chemist ran around while clutching her bloody paw, desperately trying to wrap it up with the length of her pink dress. The harder she pressed, the more she bled. Meanwhile, Chetty’s horrific visage was still able to give off a wicked smile with every tooth showing.

The necromancer stood up and snickered, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have parents to harass and quite possibly have some…fun with!”

The constant snickering sent a firestorm through Pia’s adrenaline system. She didn’t care about the blood in her paw. She didn’t care about the massive debt she supposedly owed. She cared only that this maniac was even considering messing with her family. The many dinners the Caine family had with cherry pies, the snuggle sessions with catnip, and the comfort of living with such warm hearted people gave Pia the motivation necessary to deliver a running drop kick to Chetty, knocking him into the flames.

The necromancer rolled around trying to extinguish the flames that consumed his body, but it was all for naught. One of the pillars in the ceiling above came crashing down on top of him and obliterated his ribcage into bloody pieces. Meanwhile, Pia wrapped her bloody paw once again and scurried for the front exit. The growing flames blocked the doorway along with every window in the lab. She tried several times to walk through fire anyways, but the burning pain and chemical odor from her potions slapped her away every time.

If Pia was going to die in this lab, that would leave her family open to an attack from these asshole debt collectors. They would be defenseless, just like any other family member that inherited the debt after their deaths. The Caine family of kitten chemists would be wiped off the face of the earth and it was all for the sake of ill-gotten money. Money was overrated. Money was the root of all evil. Money wasn’t worth dying over. Pia took a deep breath and dove through the fiery front entrance. The heat singed her fur badly, but after rolling on the cobblestone streets outside, she was able to extinguish the assaulting flames.

There she was, lying in the gutter while her potion lab and her only source of income went up in smoke and flames. Her body ached, her paw bled, and her fur felt like she went swimming at the base of a volcano. And yet, she stood up tall and proud, this time without anything to aid her.

She took some deep breaths and limped away from the burning lab, almost losing her balance, but still standing tall in the end. She willingly knelt down and screamed to the sky, “You want my money?! You want my debt?! Come and get it, you stupid sons of bitches! I’ll take your whole agency down! Nobody fucks with the Caine family! Nobody!”

And then the schizophrenic voices assaulted her mind like a thousand lobotomies. “This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.” The dark voices said this over and over again and all Pia could do was clutch her head with her bloody paw while skeletons in hoods and robes gathered around her. One of them knelt down beside her, grabbed her by the nape of the neck to make eye contact, and said, “We’ll be in touch!” before a snake crawled out of the skeleton’s eye socket.

The skeletons and the snake disappeared in puffs of smoke not unlike the flames surrounding the laboratory. Pia wept a rainfall of tears onto the ground as she realized what she had gotten herself into. With no job, no income, and too much fear to fight against her dunners, the Caine family would succumb to the whims of this horrible agency. Debt collection was a business and business was booming as loudly as the flames in the background. Even so, Pia picked her head up, wiped her tears and blood away, and reluctantly said, “I’ll be ready for you!”

Chaos

The forest road seemed to be dragging on forever, like traveling on an endless conveyor belt. With the trees on the side of the road flexing back and forth in this windy weather, this seemed like the wrong night to take such a route. Officers Kenny Ryder and Robin Cage seemed to agree on that point, but they weren’t going to complain…publicly. They had a much bigger concern on their minds than potentially falling trees. In the back of their paddy wagon was Derrick O’Brien, the nation’s most dangerous domestic terrorist.

Derrick didn’t prefer bombs. He didn’t need guns. All he needed to get his message across were the blades on the tips of his powerful fingers, the flesh and bone-chewing fangs in his mouth, and the vocal cords of a bloodthirsty monster. The brown fur all over his body reeked of death and decay, like somebody who hadn’t showered in months while slashing victims to chunky pieces. The man wolf slept peacefully in his steel chain cocoon, but not without snoring like an AK-47 every time he breathed in.

Kenny and Robin kept looking over their shoulders and out at the road in short bursts before the chocolate haired Officer Cage broke the ice. “You know, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my career, but a fucking werewolf? If I don’t see a big fat paycheck at the end of this assignment, I might turn into a werewolf and go ape shit myself.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said the baldheaded male with the scraggly beard Officer Ryder. “You should have seen all the manpower it took just to chain that bastard up. And now they’re sending you and me to transport his big ass to some goddamn lab.”

“Lab? You mean they’re going to put makeup on him and squirt shampoo in his eyes?” asked Robin jokingly as she drummed her fingers on the dashboard.

“Hey, if I ever find out they’re testing Head and Shoulders on that big furry thing, I’ll gladly do commercials for those guys.”

“You don’t even have hair, Kenny.”

“So?”

The brief moment of comedy put weak smiles on Kenny and Robin’s faces. They hadn’t lost sight of how risky this assignment really was. One steel link snaps and Robin could lose her head. One pad lock breaks and Kenny could have his intestines spread all over the windshield. As quickly as the windstorm blew that night, the humorous mood faded.

“Oh, what the hell is this shit?” asked Kenny when he stepped on the brakes and slowly brought the paddy wagon to a halt. The halogen headlights did so little to make out the hooded and robed figure in the middle of the road. It was just standing there frozen in place when Kenny blasted the horn three times. He rolled down the window on his side and stuck his head out before shouting, “Hey! Move your ass! We’ve got a prisoner in tow and you’re holding us up!”

No response from the hooded figure, which prompted an even longer horn blast from Kenny followed by another shout. “Hey! I said move your ass off the road! Are you deaf or something?!”

“You want me to take care of this asshole?” asked Robin with her taser armed. Her partner gave a nod before she got out of the paddy wagon and slowly approached the hooded figure with her taser locked and loaded. “Sir? Ma’am? Whatever the hell you are, I suggest you get out of the road before I…”

“Before you what?” asked the feminine voice from behind the hood. She raised her bladed finger and continued her question with, “Shoot me with that little toy? Go ahead. See what happens, cupcake!”

Robin fired the electrical prongs, but not without the woman grabbing them and smiling at her with creepily seductive red lips. Officer Cage shivered and watched with wide eyes as the woman removed her hood and revealed herself to be a purple-haired vampire complete with bloody fangs. Before Officer Cage could let out a whispery swear word, the vampire rushed up to her and forearmed her in the cheek, knocking her to the ground and exposing her neck.

The vampire licked her lusty lips with anticipation as she knelt down to take a juicy bite. And then she heard, “Hey! Don’t even think about it, you circus freak!” Kenny stood at the opposite side of the paddy wagon with his shotgun pointed right at her. He even pumped it for intimidation, but instead got a voracious growl from the mysterious woman.

Officer Ryder squeezed off a shot, but hit nothing as the woman quickly ducked down and rushed toward the back of the vehicle. The shotgun wielder darted over to the fallen Robin Cage and put two fingers on her neck for a pulse. She had one, but it was fading. The entire right side of her face was swollen and purple.

Kenny watched his partner fade to black in front of him and said in a comforting voice, “Please, don’t die on me. I’ll find that bitch and put one in her chest for you.”

Robin painfully lifted her head off the ground and spoke in a raspy voice, “Kenny…forget about me…what about the prisoner?!”

The sounds of wet lips smacking together romantically could be heard from the back of the paddy wagon. “Oh no, no, not this!” shouted Kenny when he saw the back door swinging wide open. He patted Robin’s chocolate brown hair and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not leaving your side. Those two are probably long gone by now. They’re someone else’s problem.”

“Such dedication to your craft, Officer,” said the lusty vampire, who stepped out from behind the opened door with her arm wrapped around a thin blond haired stud muffin in an orange jumpsuit, quite the contrast from the beast previously in lockup. She smiled at the man and said, “Derrick O’Brien, scourge of the werewolf clan.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the ultra-sexy vampire queen, Sonya Demonic,” said Derrick, who was engaged in an intense lip lock with his blood sucking girlfriend, complete with ass grabbing and breast squeezing. Sonya took off her robes to reveal a stunning silk black dress underneath. “Excellent choice, my sweets!” They kissed some more.

“You two scumbags make me sick!” shouted Kenny as he pumped the handle on his shotgun and squeezed off another round into the couple’s vicinity. The blast hit Derrick in the chest, but the human-staged werewolf no-sold his pain with sarcastic clutches at his “wound”. Sonya Demonic held her mouth in mock horror and let out a few orgasmic screams.

The couple laughed off the “pain” together and hugged it out. Derrick wagged his finger at the shock-eyed Kenny and said, “Now, now, Officer. Didn’t I hear you say yourself that it took a lot of manpower to chain me up? What do you think happened to that manpower?” Derrick broke his embrace from Sonya and patted his tummy with both hands before snickering evilly.

“You sick bastard! You sick, sick bastard!” shouted Kenny.

“Sick? Sick? Who’s the sick one, Officer?” asked Sonya. “My beautiful werewolf boyfriend here, or the one person who keeps feeding able-bodied cops to the two of us for dinner? Did you two really think this was a transport mission to some god-awful laboratory? Come on, now. There’s nothing out here except for trees and windstorms. Go ahead. Call for help. I dare you!”

Kenny’s breathing was getting heavier and angrier with each passing second. He leaned down and picked up the wounded Robin baby style before sitting her in the passenger seat. She was still breathing, but shallowly. She sat upright, but with her neck at a forty-five degree angle. She let out a small cough to let Kenny know she was still alive.

Meanwhile, the shotgun-wielding cop was in the driver’s seat trying to work the radio buttons. He spoke into the microphone, “I need backup! Officer down! Repeat! Officer Robin Cage is down! I need extra units and an ambulance for her!”

There was a heavy crackling at the other end of the radio before an ominous voice said, “I’m sorry, Officer Ryder, but Miss Demonic and Mr. O’Brien are going to be full with just you two as their meal. It was the only way I could keep the creatures of the night from taking over this city. I’m sorry, Kenny. The sacrifice has to be made.”

Officer Ryder’s heavy breathing turned to silent weeping. The silence was broken when he pounded on the steering wheel and blew the horn while swearing his head off. The fit of rage ended when Sonya and Derrick were on opposite sides of the vehicle’s cab banging on the glass windows. The creatures smiled at them with bloodshot eyes, blood filled mouths, and plenty of hoarse laughs. Derrick had transformed back into his werewolf stage and was chewing on the door handle for special effects.

Kenny slammed his own head against the steering wheel until his forehead bled buckets. His vision was getting hazy and his body was relaxing. He didn’t even feel the storm of broken glass that nearly slashed his face up even more. His last vision before passing out from the pain of Sonya’s vampire bite was Robin Cage being dragged out of the vehicle with Derrick’s wolf teeth gnashing her skull.

The entire “dining experience” took little more than fifteen minutes of chewing, sucking, and chugging. Meaty morsels sliding down the creature’s throats while the bones were being cast aside. Blood oozing from their mouths like a waterfall of violence. They were full from their meals, but still had room for dessert, which they would eat in the privacy of the paddy wagon’s prisoner hold. Red velvet kisses with a few small drops of Pina Colata. Such a lovely meal for a lovely couple, who held hands afterwards and watched the night sky together. They had to do date night again sometime.