This week wraps up November’s guest post series on Villains, with Nephylim, author of unusual erotic romance. Check her out!
The Villains of Enigma
There are many villains in Enigma, most of them hidden in the background. They are the evil men and women involved in human trafficking.
When he was twelve years old Matthew Hart was snatched off the street and through a horrific ‘training programme’ was turned into Silver, the sex slave who becomes famous—among the shady world of the sex industry—for his exotic dancing.
Beaten horrifically, thrown out of a moving car on a motorway verge and left to die, Silver is deeply damaged mentally and physically by his past. The story is about Silver’s return to health and how he finds love with the man who nurses him and heals his damaged mind.
Apart from the shady characters in the background there are two main villains of the piece. The Master, who ‘owned’ Silver and gave the order for him to be killed, and Faith, the former slave and chosen assassin who tracks him, tortures him and twice fails to kill him.
The Master never actually appears in the story. He’s a shadowy figure who overshadows Silver and everything he does. The Master took care of Silver, rescued him from a life of being passed from one person to another as property to be used and abused as they pleased. He recognised his beauty and talent, gave him a safe and fairly comfortable place to stay and provided him with the means to take care of himself and enhance his natural beauty.
However, the Master also ordered him beaten to death for the crime of falling in love with another slave, and has him kidnapped and tortured for escaping that death. He is about to arrive and ensure Silver doesn’t escape death again, by carrying out the sentence himself, when Silver is rescued and snatched from the jaws of death yet again.
For slave Masters it’s all about reputation. Silver has to die because he sullied the Master’s reputation. However, when he escapes death not one, but twice, he actually enhances the Masters reputation and therefore deserves his freedom, which the Master bestows on him at the end of the book.
The Master is portrayed as a cold and calculating character but not unkind in his own way. He sticks by the rules and as soon as he is able, according to the codes of the life he leads, he lets Silver go. He’s honourable in his own way and according to his own rules.
Faith now, he’s a different kettle of fish. A slave himself, he’s given the task of being Silver’s angel of death. When he fails to execute him the first time, he is punished severely and set to watch and wait until he is able to snatch him again, which he does with relish.
During the course of a car journey and while waiting for the Master to arrive at the warehouse where Silver and River are being held, he gleefully torments and tortures Silver and takes delight in ensuring he realises he’s about to die, and that River is in prime position to witness every moment.
Faith is the classic villain. He’s evil through and through. He will punish others for what was done to him, treat them as he was treated, and do it with clear enjoyment. This is why he torments Silver and River, why he tortures and humiliates Silver, rather than simply following his orders and doing what has to be done.
When it becomes obvious he is about to fail in his task he cold bloodedly shoots Silver and makes his escape before the authorities arrive.
I believe that, when he discovers Silver has escaped him by surviving yet again, against all the odds, he goes totally insane. Despite knowing the Master has freed Silver and he is no longer under orders to kill him, he turns up at his home with a gun to finish the job once and for all. To know whether he succeeds or not requires reading the book.
Bio
Nephylim has always been a storyteller and started to be a writer some five years ago, having her first book published in January 2012. Since then three full length novels, a collection of short stories and three collaborations have followed. She was born and bred in the South Wales Valleys and still lives there with her two children, two cats and a collection of ghosts and spirits.
December Series:
Hope
