“My god, but you have a set of lungs on you!” Lita’s raw voice filled the cage of masonry and steel. Nina looked up in astonishment. Was this a mirage brought on by starvation or was Lita actually before her?
“Lita?”
“Yes, Dr. Gould, the one and only.”
“You came!” Nina sounded almost happy to see the vindictive harpy.
“How could I not? Christ! You whine like a little bitch all night! Even banshees will envy that godless screeching of yours!” Lita stormed at the weak woman behind the confines of her coop and with unnatural strength she slammed both her open palms against the iron bars, shaking them even into their stone foundation. Her ferocity echoed in her face, distorted in incensed hatred for the historian.
Through a foaming mouth of gritted teeth, Lita spat, “Oh, little, little thorn. I feel like eating your fucking face off your skull… even without spice or rum, just like that.” She darted her long, thin arm through the bars and pinched Nina’s cheek painfully between her talons. Her sinister change in tone and the incredible potency of her grip shocked Nina into a sober warning, Lita was completely unstable. Not only did this unsettle her, but as before, Nina could not help but detect something superhuman about Lita, although she could not put her finger on what it was.
The scarlet glow of her mane radiated against the light as she thundered out of the holding cell and Nina heard her shout at someone in the hallway, “Feed the pup, would you? For fuck’s sake, I don’t have the patience for this touchy feely shit! I’ll be with Lockhart.”
Nina gasped. Lockhart was here?
One of Lita’s men, a short and stout Italian looking fellow, waddled up to her cell with a combination probe that sported an infrared device of sorts on its tip. Like a magic wand he waved it at the edge of the bars where the wall met the steel and by some strange reaction of science and electronics the entire façade of iron shifted aside for Nina to come out.
For a moment, she was so fascinated with the workings of the system that she forgot that she had finally been freed from her isolation chamber.
“Come eat something, Doctor,” he said in a programmed cadence, emotionless. But it was not because he lacked it, it was merely an occupational hazard to have feelings when working for the red dragon of the Nazi madness.
“Oh, thank you. Thank you,” Nina said in uncharacteristically docile and she stumbled forward to keep up with the man. Weak from emotional exhaustion and hunger, Nina accidentally fell against him. When he caught her and helped her up, she could see the compassion in his eyes.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
“You are very welcome, Dr. Gould,” he replied, keeping his tone in the same robotic zone. However, she could feel the underling hook his arm under hers so that she would be supported. On her weakened legs, it had become tedious to walk and so he walked with her over the shallow flood water of the long arched corridor to the circular room where a table with food was dressed just for her.
“Why does she feed me now? If she wanted to starve me…”
“Miss Røderic did not mean to, Doctor,” he whispered as they entered the domed room. “She…” he hesitated and looked about him before continuing, “…she forgets about people, about her… guests.”
Nina frowned. He clarified the odd behavior of his employer, “Miss Røderic is very busy all the time with all kinds of things and sometimes, you see, sometimes she just forgets how quickly time goes by. It was not her intention to starve you. She is just a bit…”
“Scatterbrained,” Lita’s low husky rasp emanated from the dark corner to the left, where she sat in the shadow of an antique mahogany breakfront. Nina yelped in a start.
“Madam, that was not what I was going to say,” he started, but Lita hushed him and gestured with her hand for him to place Nina and he nodded. Leading the timid, small frame of the historian to the table, his hand trembled slightly under her leaning arm and Nina’s brown eyes looked up at his. He returned a quick, uncomfortable smile to ease her and helped her sit down.
“Please don’t tell me you are a vegan or a fruitarian or one of those insufferable limp dicks that believe that all life is sacred,” Lita purred as she brought her tall, sensual figure across the rock floor to join Nina at the table where two plates waited on red place mats with silver cutlery flanking them neatly.
“No,” Nina replied quickly, not out of respect, but purely because she hated those over-sensitive types too. “Oh, hell no. I eat just about everything, as long as it doesn’t look back at me, or I can’t tell what it is.”
“Splendid,” Lita announced in her deep voice, now purely impressed with her prisoner.
Nina was famished, wishing there was at least some bread put out so long. Then she remembered where she was and in which capacity she dwelled: at the mercy of Lita Røderic, psycho bitch extraordinaire. The latter sentiment was the irony of the evening, as the tall captor had swung to the exact opposite persona as 20 minutes before when she salivated at the prospect of cannibalizing Nina.
The dishes were served. Roast duck with cranberry preserve, asparagus, baby potatoes, and salad. Lita, like a harmless high school pal, pointed at the salad and remarked, “I wasn’t quite sure what you eat, really, so I opted for greens. I hope that’s okay?”
Nina smiled and nodded, completely perplexed by Lita’s sudden amicable nature and her instincts urging her to play along as nicely as she could. She was desperately curious about Lita’s plans for her and equally much to know what Sam’s status was. However, between the succulent meat that painfully stilled her hunger with every bite and Lita’s tendency to shed her skin like a shape shifter, she elected to remain cordial and docile. Nina felt like an Omega wolf, cowering lower than the head of the Alpha to appease it, but she had no reservations about the peril of this woman’s company.
Lita did not eat. Instead she lit another cigarette and poured some whisky for them both. Again, Nina did not ask. Lita’s dress was stained with a few rusty blots that made her nervous. Outside, the mockery of the wind had not relented and it stirred the embroidered fabric banners on the wall of the room. Depicting ravenous wolves tearing at an elk, it swayed in the draft that haunted the bare window that sat about a story higher in the curvature of the stone wall. Like a blind eye, it shimmered from the light overcast sky that brightened the darkness.
“What is the time now? I have completely lost track,” Nina asked. Her watch broke when she was forced into the car at Warriston Graveyard.
“I don’t know,” Lita said indifferently. Nina’s eyes found the kind henchman standing on ceremony and he lifted his three fingers to indicate it was 3am. It was clear that Lita had no routine or concept of time. Perhaps it was part of her idiosyncrasies or maybe she just never slept. That was a disturbing thought, as if she was not psychotic enough. At once, Lita turned her ice blue eyes on Nina, pinning her with a stare that carried absolutely no indication of intention or mood, implying that she had heard Nina’s mental accusation somehow.
“You are going to try and stop me, aren’t you, Nina?” Lita said evenly while her face remained static in its position, moving only her lips. Her words fell from her grotesquely cavernous mouth in slow motion, leaving Nina’s food bitter on her tongue. To add to the horror of the moment, when Lita rose from her chair, Nina noticed for the first time the Black Sun insignia extending across the surface span of the convex ceiling above them.