Nosferatu began to rise, but Kajilil’s hand was on his arm, holding him down. “It is futile,” Kajilil said. “You would be cut down before you even got close.”
“What are they going to do?” Nosferatu demanded, as the priests and prisoners made their way up a hastily constructed wooden ramp to the top of the Black Sphinx.
“We must watch and see,” Kajilil said.
Vampyr demanded the looking device and Nosferatu reluctantly gave it to him, wincing at Vampyr’s curse when he saw his twin, Lilith, bound in chains and drained.
A hush rolled over the crowd as the four remaining Gods appeared. All the humans except the high priests and prisoners dropped to their knees, heads bowed. The Gods were wrapped in black robes with hoods drawn close around their faces. Nosferatu realized their garb was not to hide themselves, but as he and Vampyr had done, to protect the Gods’ eyes and skin from the sunlight. The Airlia slowly walked up the ramp to the top of the Sphinx, towering over the surrounding priests and guards.
One of the four stepped forward, turned to the high priest and nodded. The priest began to chant out in a loud voice that carried clearly to all in view.
“Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.”
The high priest paused as Chatha and Lilith were brought forward to the two wooden X’s. Their robes were ripped off, leaving their pale skin exposed. They were pressed spread-eagle to the wooden beams, blinking rapidly and painfully in the bright morning light, heads turning to and fro as if in search of their immediate future. Priests went to work, dipping leather straps in buckets of water and wrapping them around the limbs, working from the hands and feet inward. Each strap was an inch wide and spaced about two inches apart, leaving pale white flesh exposed between. The priests slowly continued until the arms and legs were encased up to the armpits and groin in strips of wet leather.
When they were done, once more the high priest chanted. “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.” Then there was silence.
“What are they doing?” Vampyr demanded.
“I do not know,” Kajilil said. He had taken the looking device back and was peering through it. “I have never seen this before.”
The sun was rising behind them and had just struck the top of the Sphinx and the captives. Nosferatu narrowed the open strip in the cloth around his head. He shifted his gaze from Chatha and Lilith to Nekhbet. He could see how close she was to death. They had drained her even after he had taken his fill the previous night. And she had lost much blood from her wrist.
A moan escaped Chatha’s lips, carrying through the dry air. At first Nosferatu could not tell what caused her to cry out in pain. He assumed it was the sun striking skin and eyes that had not known daylight in many, many years. He took the looking device from Kajilil and peered through it. He noticed that the fingers on Chatha’s right hand were twitching uncontrollably. She cried out once more. The other hand was also twitching. Then Nosferatu saw the devilment the Gods had concocted and he cursed them. The leather was drying, and in doing so, contracting, pressing into the flesh. The straps were drying in the order they had been put on, from the outer ends of the limbs inward. Cutting off circulation, and pressing into the skin.
Nosferatu realized it was also the most devious and terrible torture that could have been devised for the state the two half-breeds were in, the bands forcing what little blood they had left into the centers of their bodies and keeping them alive, stopping the flow to the limbs bit by bit, while cutting into the flesh with inexorable pain.
Both were crying out by then, the screams forced from them by the waves of pain reverberating through their bodies.
“We must do something,” Vampyr hissed.
Nosferatu agreed with the emotion but he knew Kajilil was right. “There is nothing we can do.”
“My sister,” Vampyr whispered in despair. “They will pay. The Gods and the humans. They will pay for this.”
Vampyr rose and began to run forward toward the Black Sphinx. Nosferatu leapt up and chased him down, covering the distance between them in an instant. He wrapped his arms around the younger Undead, dragging him to the ground. Vampyr thrashed to and fro in his grasp. The fight was over when Kajilil rapped a stone on the side of Vampyr’s head, knocking him unconscious. They dragged Vampyr back to their observation post. Nosferatu tied Vampyr’s hands behind his back and bound his legs tightly together, then returned his attention to the top of the Black Sphinx.
The high priest stepped between the two crosses, spreading his arms to encompass both. “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.”
The torture went on to the point where even watching was practically unbearable. Both women’s bodies were vibrating so violently that the sound of their backs hitting the wood as they spasmed in pain was clearly audible despite the screams. The bones in their legs and arms snapped, the sounds echoing across the gathered crowd. The humans gathered round looked on with perverted fascination.
Chatha died first, at least an hour after the last bands cut off all blood flow to her crushed limbs. The sun was nearly vertical overhead, indicating she had lived for almost five hours under the torture. And Lilith was still alive, although her screams were more muted, her throat parched and worn from the effort.
What would they do to Nekhbet? Nosferatu wondered. There was not a third cross on the Sphinx’s head, only the empty black tube.
Lilith finally raised her head and blindly looked to the sky as she cried out, “My brother. Avenge me.” Then at last she died with a whimper.
At her voice Vampyr rose out of his unconscious stupor, eyes blinking, great pain etched on his face. “My sister.” Vampyr hunched over in pain for his twin, bound fists clenched as he felt her death to the core of his being.
One of the Gods gestured and the high priest went over and leaned close to the God, listening. Then the high priest went between the two bodies. “There are two others like these out there. Two who have betrayed the Gods. If they do not make themselves known, a worse fate will be their last companion’s fate throughout the ages.” At that, the high priest pointed at Nekhbet.
Two priests grabbed her arms and pulled her back, placing her inside the open black sarcophagus. A belt was placed around her waist and she was chained to the interior. One of the Gods went over to her, placing the bands with leads around her arms and legs. The God reached in and took the crown out of its slot, settling it on top of Nekhbet’s head. Peering through the cylinder, Nosferatu could see that there were also wires running from the crown back to the tube. Done, the God stepped away.
Over a hundred years. That was how long Nekhbet and Nosferatu had shared the same cell and fate. They had talked at every opportunity. At first of reality, but then they had begun inventing new worlds, imaginary places to which they could disappear together.
“She will suffer the living sleep,” the high priest called out. “Trapped in this, unable to die, unable to sleep, unable to move. Aware all the time. Unless you show yourself.”
Kajilil placed a hand on Nosferatu’s shoulder. “If you show yourself, both of you will suffer the same fate as your two comrades. And they will kill her too. She is only alive because you and your comrade are free.”