Emma awoke to pain. Her own. Her head throbbed and her whole body throbbed with it. She went to touch the back of her head, where she felt the most pain, but found her hands were restricted. Tied together, above her head.
She opened her eyes to blurred vision. A small halo of light flickered in front of her. Black shapes either side of her. Wherever she was, it was ice cold, dark, and close.
She licked her dried, blood-caked, lips. Blinked a few times and watched as the room came into slow focus. She wriggled her fingers. There was a clinking noise. She looked up and saw her hands tightly bound in thick rope, strung over a large hook on a metal beam. She had been suspended from the hook. She tried to wrestle her hands free.
The effort made her head swim. She put her head down, stopped moving, and closed her eyes briefly. The world stopped spinning and the pain stopped pulsing through her in sharp incessant bursts. She took a few deep breaths. She opened her eyes, blew some hair off her face, and looked down instead. Her feet dangled inches from a cold, wet, stone floor. She attempted to move her feet but she saw large metal shackles had been clamped firm around each ankle, and chained to the floor. There was no chance for movement more than an inch or two. If she stretched her body out taught she could just manage to touch the floor.
On the table ahead of her was the flickering light of a candle. Beside it was a set of strange tools and instruments lying in a precise row on a pale green cloth. They appeared to be the same, or similiar, to the tools she had seen at the hot springs. Even the pointed steel rod she'd used to kill one of the brothers was there. Cleaned and sparkling in the gloom. It sent a shiver through her. She didn't want to dwell on what each of the tools were used to for, but she found herself with a macabre compulsion to know.
She heard a low moan to the left of her. She snapped her head in that direction and was rewarded with stabbing pain.
"Eergh. Gotta stop doing that," she said to herself. The pain came with a wave of nausea. The sight came with a wave of panic and dread. Rational thought swept away.
Hanging next to her, naked, unconscious, was Regina. The woman's breathing was raspy and laboured.
Emma struggled wildly in her restraints. Her hands and feet bruised as she attempted to twist free. After a few minutes, she tired, her thoughts settled, and she realised she was only hurting herself. The bind was too strong.
"Regina," Emma whispered, in an intense, concerned tone. No response. "Regina?!"
Regina moaned. Her head remained slumped forward. Dark hair covered her eyes. Her body riddled with fresh bruising and cuts. Blood dripped from head and leg wounds. Emma had never seen Regina so broken, so vulnerable.
"Regina," Emma said, her voice cracked as she fought back tears. "Please Regina. Please wake up. Don't you dare die on me."
Then Emma saw him. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Anger flooded her mind. She was about to rip into him when she realised he wasn't moving for a reason. He was bound as well, unconscious, and hanging from a meat hook, just like them. She gave a derogatory snort of laughter. Grex's plan of trapping and killing the Sinciput men had backfired. In a major way. 'When he wakes up,' Emma thought. 'I'm going to kill him.'
Directly beside him, also hanging on a hook, was an actual wild pig. A huge creature. Dead. Blood dripped from where the hook had been inserted into its neck. The blood snaked around the mix of pink and brown toned-skin, and pooled on the floor, on mass. Its legs were thick, like tree trunks. Its back legs touched the floor at odd angles, like they had been broken at the knee joints.
"Hell," Emma said softly. She surveyed the room, all the while, whispering loudly to Regina in an effort to waken her.
She surmised they were in the closed butcher shop. In its cold storage room. Old dark stains sprayed the walls like bloodied frescoes engraving the walls with its harrowing history. Black blotches marked the floor. And the smell of rotted flesh lingered in the stale air and stung Emma's eyes with its intensity.
A large butcher's block, the size of a sarcophagus, lay to her right. Mortar and pestle stood at the nearest corner. Along with a few coloured vials, a cup, and three jugs of phosphorescent yellow-green liquid.
The block's aged timber surface was drenched in the same black stains as the floor, and had an axe firmly lodged in its smoothed dipped centre, worn with age and use.
It had not been cleaned.
"Regina!"
"Miss Swan?"
"Oh thank god," Emma said. Regina finally raised her head, and turned towards Emma. She looked dazed. Clumps of hair stuck to her face. "Regina? I need you to wake up. Don't pass out. Just don't. I need your help. Need you to use your magic. Get us the hell outta here."
"Miss Swan?"
"Regina, focus, please," Emma said, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice. "I need you!"
"Not," Regina said, "able." She took a big breath and glanced around. "Where are we?"
"We're in deep shit, that's where. Oh hell Regina just use your magic and get us out of these, now." Emma tugged at the rope and chains. "Before tweedle dumb returns to do, I don't want to know what." Emma's eyes lingered on the table with the instruments. She swore.
"You're cute," Regina said.
Emma let out a cry of frustration.
"You really are." Regina went to reach out to Emma then she realised she couldn't. She wrestled with the restraints in a rising panic.
"Regina!" Emma yelled, trying to cut through the other woman's distress. It worked. Regina stopped and gave Emma an enigmatic look.
"Are you having a nightmare? Am I in it?"
Emma sighed. "I wish. Regina do you think you can cast a spell and get us out of here?"
Regina pursed her lips, flexed her hands a bit, and tried to cast a small spell. A tiny puff was the result, nothing else.
"Ah, no. Sorry my dear. Maybe if you have another of your 'dreams', or better yet, we have some uncomplicated sex. Though knowing you it'd be complicated, but at least you would heal me some more," Regina flashed Emma a smile in a moment of lucidity, "I could endeavour to try again."
Emma leaned her head on her bicep and sighed heavily.
"Regina. This isn't a game. There's not going to be a happy ending. It's going to be a shitty shitty ending for both of us. No finding my parents, no Henry," the latter name sparked a response. Regina repeated their son's name. Her lucidity fading. "We're just going to end up being some Sinciput brother's kill. Whatever they gave you, did a number on you."
"I hurt," came the words, softly spoken, and with a hint of surprise.
"I know," Emma replied.
"Head feels," Regina paused, thinking hard, "strange. Miss Swan, what did you do to me? What are you playing at?"
"Not me, and not playing Regina."
The door swung open behind them. The room flooded with natural light for the briefest of moments before the door slammed shut. Emma knew someone had entered. She attempted to twist around and see who, but failed. Her head began throbbing again.
"Regina," she said through clenched teeth. She cast a furtive glance at Regina.
"I don't believe she can help you," the voice said. A female voice. Familiar and chilling.
"Who…"
"Am I?" Mary Mary moved to stand by the table. She gave Emma a quick smile. She looked almost coy. "I'm Mary Mary and we've already been introduced. Though perhaps I hit you too hard as you are bleeding a bit. You do remember me, right?"
"Yeah unfortunately." Emma raised an eyebrow.
"Good, good."
"Depends on your perspective," Emma said.
"From my perspective," Mary Mary looked at the line up, "it looks very good. When Grex mentioned the Queen was travelling with a white witch maiden, untapped, I got very excited."
"Doesn't take much then hey?" Emma's mind began racing for an escape.
"Your blood and essence will add to our longevity, perfection, beauty." Mary Mary caressed her own face.
"You've looked in a mirror lately?"
"Not as often as some," Mary Mary said. A dark look crossed her face.
"You do know I'm no virgin, right? Kinda kills the virgin sacrifice thing, yeah?"
Mary Mary ignored Emma and toyed with the instruments laid out on the table. "Virgin sacrifice," she said, as if remembering something. "No, not that."
"Gather you're not our rescue party then?" Emma closed her eyes and attempted her own magic. Nothing happened.
"No, definitely not." Mary Mary smiled. "No need to stress yourself though. I'm going to treat you with such," she paused, "delicate care."
"Nice to know," Emma said. "Where's tweedle dumb?"
"Oh, Jendore Sinciput? He'll be here at dawn and very hungry. Ravenous even. I'll let him have a lick or two with you. Then his revenge with her. Whatever he wants. He can even eat my disobedient little bitch of a wolf. Stupid stupid wolf." She flashed an angry look at Grex. "But you sweet sweet Emma, you will be all mine. Oh my we are going to have such fun together while I watch my garden grow."
"Can't wait."
"Excuse me?" Mary Mary asked.
"Slight hitch, Mary Mary. I can call you Mary Mary, yeah? Not that your offer isn't very appealing, but, well, I'm kinda taken, sorry."
"I know you have an affection for this one." She poked Regina and got a satisfying 'moan' as a reward. "Why? I do not understand. But you wont need to worry about her for much longer."
Mary Mary's eyes flashed an angry look at Regina, and then softened as they resumed their assessment of Emma. "But you, well, you and I are going to have ourselves a very private dinner party."
"Aren't we all a bit under-dressed for a party?"
"Quite the opposite, really." Mary Mary winked at Emma. She then turned her attention to Regina. She stroked Regina's face and lifted her chin so that Regina looked directly at her.
"Time for my aperitif," Mary Mary said. "Good evening precious."
"Good evening," Regina said. Mary Mary smiled and Regina smiled back, spellbound by her eyes.
"Yes, it is a good evening, isn't it? And it's so good to see my special mixture working so well. Just the right group of ingredients to spell-bind a carnivorous queen for my carnivorous pigs." She examined Regina's face.
Emma closed her eyes again and concentrated on the rope that bound her hands.
"What'd you give her?" Emma asked.
"I call it 'marinade usucapio regina'. The dose will continue to course through her veins long after she has served us all the delight we desire. She is so easily led, so easily hurt. Even now she would consent to the pigs more unsavoury requests." She poured green liquid into a cup. Added a dash of purple. Stirred. She took the cup and pushed it onto Regina's lips.
"Open wide."
Regina obliged.
"Good girl. Now, drink," Mary Mary commanded. Regina took a sip. "Drink all of it."
"What are you doing?" Emma asked, with a sense of dread. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her hands twisted some more in the restraints. Emma willed herself to concentrate on magic.
Mary Mary pushed the cup closer, tipped it higher, pressing down till teeth parted. "Swallow!"
Regina swallowed. She was forced to take big gulps. Some of the liquid spilled out.
"Don't waste a drop." Mary Mary put down the cup and wiped Regina's lips with her thumb.
"Mary Mary?!" Emma's voice was low and filled with hate.
"Don't worry Emma. You don't need drugging. Regina, on the other hand, well the mixture helps do a whole range of things to her. This is going to open her right up." Her smile turned Emma's stomach. "Seems a waste just to chop her up and eat her. But that's what my friend wants to do, eventually, apparently. Something about revenge for his eldest brother, who had a similiar misfortune in her care."
Mary Mary leaned in close and whispered to Regina. "What would you like me to do to you my delicious queen. Hmmm?" She kissed Regina on the lips. A soft, light kiss. Emma watched in horror as Regina's body responded. Mary Mary deepened the kiss.
"Leave her alone," Emma snapped.
Mary Mary pulled back and flashed a grin at Emma. "She doesn't mind. Do you petal?"
Regina shook her head.
"You want me to continue?" Mary Mary asked.
"Yes," there was need in Regina's voice.
"Because she's off her head."
"Not yet, but soon. Jendore Sinciput will finish her with some neatly placed slicing. But dawn is a long time away. I have hours to toy with her. Years with you."
There was a knock at the door behind Emma. The door inched open.
"Futa, it's ready," a male voice said, tentatively. Emma smelt rather than saw the Sinciput brother. Scar-face. Still alive. Though he must be hurting. She killed his snub-nosed pig of a brother, and badly wounded him.
Mary Mary smiled and left the room with the brother. The door shut behind them. Emma noticed the lack of a locking sound.