ichor - jason grace

VIIII

Nell woke up with a muffled groan. She tried to move before she realised that she was hanging upside down, above a pot of god-knows-what with a gag in her mouth. She reached a hand up to her head to rub at the sore spot on her head. That must have been where she hit the floor. Nell looked around. She was currently hanging between Piper and Jason. Piper was struggling, trying to get a gag similar to Nell's out of her mouth. Jason was hanging limply, eyes rolled up into his head and red welt above his left eyebrow.

One of the cyclopes in the chainmail loincloth walked towards Piper who squirmed and tried to headbutt him in the eye. " Can I take their gags off now? I like it when they scream."

The question was directed to the third cyclops, who seemed to be the leader. The crouching figure grunted, and the cyclops ripped the gags from Piper and Nell's mouths.

Neither girl screamed. Piper took a shaky breath as though she was trying to keep herself calm, and Nell bit her lip - both her head and her arm were throbbing in pain. The cut on her arm must've reopened when they hung her up.

The cyclops in the toga poked at the fire, which was now blazing away and billowing noxious black smoke towards the ceiling. The cyclops with the loincloth glowered at Piper and Nell, waiting for them to do something entertaining. "Scream, girls! I like funny screaming!"

Nell bared her teeth. There was no way she was giving this cyclops the satisfaction of seeing her scream. Piper's voice was calm and reasonable when she spoke. "Oh, Mr cyclops, you don't want to kill us. It would be so much better if you let us go."

The cyclops scratched his head, he turned to the cyclops in the fibreglass toga. "They're kind of pretty Torque. Maybe I should let them go?"

Torque, the dude in the toga, growled. "I saw them first, Sump. I'll let them go!"

Torque and Sump started to argue, but the first cyclops stood up and shouted, "Fools!"

Nell did a double-take, this cyclops was a female. She was several feet taller than Torque or Sump, and even beefier. She wore a tent of chainmail cut like a sack dress. Her greasy black hair was matted in pigtails, woven with copped wires and metal washers. Her nose and mouth were thick and smashed together like she spent her free time mashing her face into walls, but her single red eye glittered with intelligence.

The female cyclopes walked over to Sump and pushed him, knocking him over the conveyor belt. Torque backed up quickly.

"The girl is Venus spawn," the lady cyclops snarled. "She's using charmspeak on you."

Piper started to say, "Please ma'am -"

"Rarr!" the lady cyclops grabbed Piper around the waist. "Don't try that pretty talk on me, girl! I'm Ma Gasket! I've eaten heroes tougher than you for lunch!"

Ma Gasket dropped Piper and let her dangle from the chain and went back to telling Sump how stupid he was.

Nell turned to face Piper as much as she could. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah... yeah, I'm fine," she said.

"- eat her last, Ma?" Sump was saying.

"Idiot!" Ma Gasket yelled. Nell realised they must have been her sons. It looked like ugly ran in the family. "I should have thrown you out on the streets when you were babies, like proper cyclopes children. You might have learned some useful skills. Curse my soft heart that I kept you!"

"Soft heart?" Torque muttered.

"What was that you ingrate?"

"Nothing ma. I said you got a soft heart. We get to work for you, feed you, file your toenails -"