While Asha talked with Sim just before Lina’s arrival, Mir entered the pen to fetch their daily ration. He hauled out his key, a large, brass mortice key, to open the door from the kitchen, and, unlocking the door stepped inside.
He had been in the pen so many times, and been accustomed to a consistent and predictable reaction from the humans in there, that even the subtlest differences, as he at that time observed, were quite salient. He couldn't have quite described the differences if he had to, but it seemed as if the humans, instead of dreading his arrival, were waiting for him. His feeling of unease led him to walk forward cautiously, looking at the many eyes that didn't seem to be warily avoiding him, as usual, but actually looking back at him, with interest, with curiosity.
He carried a small club hanging at his side, which he drew into his hand and held, ready to strike any that might approach him. As he moved he looked, searching for a red X that would indicate his victim for the day.
As he came to the arena, he saw a woman close to middle age, with a husky appearance and a large frame who bore the X on both hands. She was directing several other workers who were chipping at the stone wall, gesturing and signaling with her red-marked hands.
Relieved to be done, Mir approached her and in his typical fashion, he grabbed her in his arms. This one was a little larger than the average, not having been yet streamlined by the diet of the pen; she still contained many pounds from her above-ground existence. But Mir was strong and lifted her easily.
Oana’s reaction as she was being picked up was not like most. Instead of panicking and flailing about in fright, she instead became enraged, turning her vitriol on the vampire that was trying to pick her up, and shouting, “How dare you! Put me down this instant. I am a monastic woman.”
At seeing a popular preacher being taken by the vampires, with the rumor of Nicoleta’s escape fresh on the mouths of everyone in the pen, the rebellion that Crina had been striving to initiate began to organize itself. One man stepped forward and tried to take Oana out of the guard’s hands, but he was painfully batted aside with the club. Others followed, several approaching Mir at once. Mir tried to swing around and knock them all aside, but he only hit a few of them, and others continued approaching en masse. Mir was now racing towards the door. A massive group of humans stood themselves between him and the door, but he didn’t pause, attempting to push through them using his size and momentum.
Dragomir sat in a large section of the pen that he’d cordoned off as his room. Two half-naked women hovered over his fat, naked body, kissing him on his hairy chest, slowly and sensually, while two guards stood at the door of his room. Stone statues and murals painted on the walls decorated his room. A rude mattress lay on the floor in the center, on which he now lay, being pleasured by his women. titillate
In the midst of this carnal leisure, he was interrupted by a young man, who hastily ran to the door, shouting, “Dragomir, they’re attacking Mir. A lot of them. It doesn’t look good.”
Dragomir was thoroughly annoyed by this news, sitting up and dressing himself with a groan. He told his women, “We’ll have to continue this afterwards,” and then commented to the young man, “Do they never learn. If they just bend down their heads and keep quiet they’ll live a long life. Now we’re going to have a whole lot of people become vampire food, again, just because they want to be contentious.”
He marched out of the room, and by the time he made it to the barred room, where a large crowd was gathered, he realized it was worse than he’d supposed. They’d somehow managed to pin Mir to the ground, with something like twenty people now holding him down. They were trying to figure out how to tie him up, with several people trying to gather rags in order to tether him to the bars.
Dragomir shouted out at them, “Let Mir go this instant! Do you all want to end up dead? Give this up, now, while you’re still alive. Did you not think this through? What are you going to do after you have him secured? Are you just going to walk out of here past the dozens of vampires out there? You don’t think they’ll be retaliation? No, no. It’ll be a retaliation far worse than anything you could imagine in here.”
At that moment, echoing through the halls of the coven, they heard a vampire screeching, “It’s Lina! It’s Lina!” in a frightened voice, followed by the voice of Lina herself who, in a screech confirmed, “It is Lina! Come and attack me!”
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