Chapter 6

Nick's brain was fogged by the excruciating pain. His body was twisted in the unrelenting immobility of burning agony; his mouth was a frozen gaping rictus. The bare sheet on the bed was stained with his sweat, bile, and pathetic drips of urine. The once white canopy pressed down on his tortured limbs even if they never touched.

His voice had gone hoarse from screaming a day ago, at least. His lips were split and bleeding; a drop of spittle burned the skin at the corner of his mouth. Nick could no longer lay flat. His spine was arched in dedication to the supreme pain that originated in his groin. His fingers and toes were bent and unmoving. However, he couldn't slip into the darkness of oblivion; it refused to come to his bidding.

"Maybe I really am 'The Deathless One'," Nick moaned.

Two days ago, the poison had arisen as expected. Elena had just returned from a shopping trip to Paris with the three girls, seven, five, and two. They had gotten into an argument over the bills. Elena was spending far too much, more than Nick could make in a short period of time. Elena would hear nothing of it and she buried her cheeks in her newest, white sable coat.

Nick had thrown down the gauntlet; Elena had closed her legs.

When the pain had gotten so bad that Nick couldn't move, she had dragged him into the bedroom and locked the door. That was two days ago.

A few hours ago, someone had jiggled the lock and stuck their head in the door. Whoever it was gasped and ran away. Even if it was one his daughters, Nick feared that no one would come. Elena kept her daughters to herself and made sure they were afraid of and disgusted with their father. His wife obviously wanted him gone and out of the way now that he had fulfilled his breeding duties. How inconvenient that he was related to The Deathless One.

Even with his eyes closed, the world was tinged with red. "Let me die," he prayed to no one in particular. "Please! Let... me... die."

Nick heard a distant banging on the front door. There was shouting and yelling. Wood split with force that made all the walls shake. Nick heard a gunshot ring out and a final scream.

Footsteps came barreling down the hall and his door was kicked in. The light from the hallway tortured his dried eyeballs and a tortured moan escaped his lungs. He heard a deep male voice call out, "Call for an EMT!"

"No!" Nick wanted to protest through the gathering fog, "just let me die. Let this nightmare end. Let me die."

"Let me through," demanded a female voice that he should have recognized, "I know where his medicine is."

The female marched into the bathroom and came back to Nick with pills and water. Nick tried to force the pills out of his mouth but he had no strength.

"Nick, stop fighting me," Sophia hissed, "we only a minute or two. God, this room reeks of Baba's magic."

Sophia brought Nick's face to her crotch and he smelt her womanly aroma trigged by the thick, spicy scent in the room. The pain eased immediately and Nick felt his body slowly slip back into human form as his erection arose. Sophia climbed on top of him and unceremoniously thrust his cock into her pussy still hidden under her skirt, forcing him to fire his days' denied release. His body slumped into exhausted and gratefully numbing unconsciousness.

A day later, the leads taped to his chest indicated that his body was recovering. Nick's body was re-hydrating with intravenous saline and he was able to sit up without reliving a blinding headache. He wasn't alone; Sophia sat at his side in the hospital.

The police had already taken his statement earlier in the afternoon. He hoped it made sense since no one would believe that he as a victim of Baba Yaga's poison. He was mad about the bills, she slipped him placebos in place of his pills and then locked him in hopes that he would die when he couldn't tend for himself. She would have had all of the money from the life insurance policy for herself.