Not My Spook!

by Tinnean

  We heard approaching footsteps and turned to face the open door.

  Quinn growled something over his shoulder and staggered as he was shoved into the room.

  I started to say, “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” in a snide tone, but the words snagged in my throat.

  Quinn stood swaying unsteadily. He looked gaunt and exhausted. His hands were cuffed behind his back; they’d taken his shoes and his feet were bare. There was a scabbed cut on his cheekbone, surrounded by a mottled green—in this instance, not Quinn’s color. His hair was matted, his shirt and trousers were filthy and torn, and it was obvious they hadn’t given him access to water to bathe. I could smell him from across the room. For a man as fastidious as my lover, that had to be… distressing.

  And I resented that I’d have to distress him further.

  “Jesus God, haven’t you heard of the benefits of water? He needs a fucking bath!” I snarled.

  “Vincent! I should have known you’d be behind this!” Quinn was staring at me as if I were the scum of the earth. Did he really believe that I would fuck him over?

  If he did, we were both up shit creek and seriously fucked.

  His eyes met mine. There was a brief flare of acknowledgment, and then it was gone. I hid my relief. He knew I was going to get him out of here or—

  He knew I was going to get him out.

  “I’m sorry, Administrator, but I have my standards. Nothing could persuade me to get within five feet of him in this condition.”

  “What’s the matter, Vincent? Not pretty enough for you?” Quinn sneered. I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yes. Gaston—” He nodded toward the short one. “—was kind enough to tell me what you had in mind. Do you really think I’d ever get on my knees for you? Not in this lifetime!”

  “You have no say in the matter, Mr. Mann.” The Administrator’s smile was self-satisfied. “And as for you, Mr. Vincent—if you desire to become part of Prinzip as intensely as I believe you do, you’ll do whatever I say, no matter what your standards.”

  “Of course,” I agreed easily. “After all, you’re the boss. And as for you, Mann… you’re gonna love what I do. I promise you.”

  “And what is the promise of a WBIS agent worth?”

  “You’re gonna find out.” I displayed the syringe. “All it takes is a matter of minutes.”

  “Is that all the stamina you’ve got? I’m disappointed in you, Vincent.”

  Was it any wonder why I… liked this guy? “You won’t be. When I get done with you, you’ll be using your mouth better than a five hundred dollar whore. Are you going to watch?” I spared a fleeting look at Richard but kept most of my attention on the two men who had brought Quinn in. The tall one stood there silently, indifferently, but Shorty’s eyes had grown hot at my words, and his arousal bulged in his pants. He was practically salivating.

  Yeah, he liked the idea of watching.

  Quinn couldn’t have avoided seeing that. His lip curled.

  Shorty grabbed Quinn’s arm and dug his fingers into it. Quinn turned pale but he didn’t flinch, and I knew it took an act of will. The bastard had pinched the nerve behind his elbow.

  It took an act of will for me, too, not to pound Shorty’s head so far down his neck he’d be kissing his own ass for daring to put his grimy hands on my lover. Not my spook, you bastard!

  “You want to let him go, Shorty?” I made sure I looked nothing but bored.

  “C’est Gaston, encul!”

  “Who’re you calling faggot, trou de cul?”

  “Gaston, tais-toi!” Richard was again the man who had created the Division, and Shorty spat a particularly dirty word but backed down. “And as for you, Mr. Vincent, please don’t make me regret I permitted this meeting.”

  “Just make sure you keep Tiny Tim on a leash.” I pretended to dismiss the other men in the room and took a step toward Quinn, narrowing the distance between us. “Now, as I was saying, before we were so rudely interrupted: You’re going to suck me off and swallow everything I give you, Mann.”

  “Oh, really?” He snapped his teeth together and dropped his gaze to my crotch. “Feeling lucky?”

  “What, no punk? Have you been watching Dirty Harry, Mann?” I mocked with a grin. “If any biting is going to be done, I’ll be the one doing it. You’re going to bear my mark.”

  His face flushed, and he scowled as if pissed that I’d turned his threat around. “Yes, well, once you’ve come, you won’t be able to get it up anytime soon.”

  “I don’t leave my pets hanging, buttercup. I won’t have any trouble getting it up again for you. The thought of having your cherry would be enough to make a eunuch hard.” A thought hit me, and I went cold inside. I glared at the Administrator. “I will be getting his cherry, won’t I? If one of your men has been before me—”

  “No, no, I assure you Mr. Mann has not been molested.”

  “That salaud would have tried,” Quinn snarled, nodding toward the short one, and Shorty’s response to that was nasty as well. The man did have a limited vocabulary.

  “Tried, but failed?” It better have been that way, because if it was otherwise—if Quinn let me know he’d been touched in any way—then fuck the plan, these bastards would die right now. Nobody touched my—touched Quinn. Nobody!

  An almost imperceptible sign from Quinn reassured me.

  “Did I not say otherwise?” The Administrator looked annoyed. I didn’t care; that wasn’t my problem.

  “Good.” The grin I turned on Quinn was hungry. I licked my lips. “I’ve always had a weakness for blue-eyed men, Mann, but I’ve got no objection to a man with hazel eyes. I’m looking forward to seeing yours blur with passion.”

  He frowned and tried to step aside, but his hands behind his back made him clumsy, and he was still within arm’s reach. “Whatever you have planned, it isn’t going to work, Vincent. I’ll see you in hell first!”

  “Big talk from the guy who’s in cuffs.” I took another step closer and dangled the syringe tauntingly between my thumb and forefinger.

  “Go fuck yourself, Vincent!”

  “No, I’m gonna fuck you!”

  Before Quinn could make a move to avoid me, I closed the distance between us, grabbed his arm to keep him in place, and jabbed him in the ass with the needle. He jumped.

  “Goddamn fucking son of a bitch!”

  I kept a hand on his arm. Minute tremors shook his body, and this close I could see he had to have lost at least ten pounds. Had they been feeding him at all? Was he in any kind of shape to help me? No matter. I’d get rid of these three alone if I had to, the big guy first, since he looked to be the most deadly.

  I turned a stony gaze on Shorty. “Get these fucking cuffs off him!” He refused to move. “There’s some left in here”—I held up the syringe—“and I can use this on you instead,” I growled.

  “Gaston!”

  “Va te faire foutre,” he muttered, but this time he obeyed, his teeth bared and his eyes muddy with fury. Then he stepped back, and I watched him without seeming to watch him.

  The cuffs had bitten deeply into Quinn’s wrists, leaving them bruised and swollen, and he rubbed them. “Whatever you’ve injected into me, it isn’t going to work.”

  “Five minutes, Mann. You’re gonna come to me. You won’t be able to help yourself.”

  He grunted and clenched and unclenched his fingers, working to get the blood flowing again.

  “Mr. Vincent, is this wise?”

  “What, you think he can take on four of us? He’s Quinton Mann, not Superman.”

  The seconds ticked past and bled into minutes. Quinn struggled to prevent that first step. He stared down at his feet as if shocked that they would betray him. Damn, the man could act!

  He fought each step after that, his hands fisted and tension radiating from him, and I made a gloating sound of triumph.

  “Give it up, Mann. I’m going to win this one.” I peeled off my jacket. There was nowhere to hang it, so I dropped it ov
er the back of the chair.

  Quinn stood in front of me. Abruptly he sighed, and when he raised his head, it was obvious the battle was over. He licked his lips and smiled, flirting with his lashes.

  “Hi, babe. What took you so long? I’ve been waiting all my life for you.” He angled his head to the side and tipped up his chin, offering me his mouth. “I’m so empty. I need you to fill me up.” He pressed himself against my body, and only I knew he wasn’t aroused. “Fuck me. Fuck me hard.”

  “Sure, buttercup. I’ll give you what you want.” I got my hands on his ass and pulled him closer.

  His arms went around my neck, and he held on tight. “Mark.” He said my name so softly that only I heard him.

  I took his earlobe between my teeth and whispered, “On my signal, Quinn.”

  He turned his face into my neck. “I want Gaston.”

  “Okay.” I ran my lips over his unmarked cheek, then looked across at Richard. “Satisfied? Or do you want to see me fuck him?”

  “I think….” Richard was suddenly hesitant.

  “Please, M. l’Administrateur!” Oh, yeah, Shorty wanted to watch. His laugh was coarse, filled with lust. “And perhaps I will get a turn too, no?”

  “Is that what you want, Administrator?”

  His eyes had gone vague and confused. “What I want?”

  I didn’t know what was happening with him, but I couldn’t afford to let the chance slip by. “Okay. Never let it be said that I can’t follow a reasonable order.” I let Quinn go, and he made a little sound of loss and reached for me. “I’m not done with you yet, buttercup.” I cupped his package, rubbed and squeezed. “Start stripping, Mann. I’m going to have you over that chair. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” His sigh was voluptuous. He dropped his hands to the button of his fly. Jesus, he wasn’t really going to strip, was he? Had Pete screwed me over, given me the real thing? “Don’t make me wait!” Quinn shot me a look, and I realized he was just making it look good.

  “Sure thing, buttercup.” I couldn’t help laughing at the look he flashed me this time, but since his back was to the others, they probably thought I was just glad to get my hands on a spook.

  I reached for my cuff button. This shirt had been especially designed by R&D to my specs. The button was a grip that fit between two fingers. When I pulled on it, a long, thin, pliant wire emerged from the seam, the perfect garrote.

  “Now!”

  There was a flash of movement, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Richard stagger sideways against the chair, then slide to the floor. Did he have a seizure or something? Well, no matter. He was out of the fight for the time being, and I wasn’t going to worry about him.

  Quinn had launched himself at Shorty, and I was relieved to see he wasn’t so badly hurt that he couldn’t take him on.

  The big one was mine, and I concentrated on him.

  I landed a kick to his knee cap that was guaranteed to dislocate it. Off-balance, he struggled to remain upright, but a blow to the other knee caused both legs to give out from under him, and he fell to the floor, clutching first one knee, then the other, too distracted by the pain to pay any attention to me. Not a smart move on his part.

  I flipped him over and got my knee into his spine, then wrapped the garrote around his neck and pulled.

  The wire sliced through skin and muscle. He scrabbled at the wire, trying desperately to stop me. Air whistled in panicked gasps as the cartilage of his trachea was cut. Blood spurted as first the jugular and then the carotid arteries were severed. Each beat of his heart pumped blood out onto the floor, and his struggles faltered, weakened, and finally stopped completely. The last breath of air out of his ruined trachea was a wet, soggy sound.

  I yanked the other end of the wire free of my sleeve and let it fall on either side of his head into the blood that surrounded him, and stood to see if Quinn needed any help.

  He didn’t. With a contained movement, he snapped Shorty’s neck. He let Shorty drop to the floor and stepped back, his head down, his hands hanging at his side.

  “Quinn.”

  When he looked at me, his eyes were bleak. “The man took pleasure in hurting me in almost every way he could think of.”

  Had Quinn lied to me earlier? “Did he sodomize you?”

  “No. In that I was lucky.”

  I walked over to the man whose neck Quinn had broken and kicked him so hard in the ribs I could hear the bones crack. And then I kicked him again.

  “Mark, shouldn’t I feel some sort of satisfaction?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I knew he’d killed before, but he was too good a man to get pleasure from taking a life. Me, now? I had no problem with that at all. “I’m feeling enough satisfaction for the both of us. Miserable sack of shit. And y’know what, Quinn?” I had to get that look of desolation off his face and said the first thing that popped into my head. “If I’d known your hands were lethal weapons, I’d never have screwed with you!”

  “No?” His expression eased a bit. “That would have been a shame.”

  “Yeah. We’d have missed out on some pretty fucking amazing times.”

  “You mean amazing times fucking?” There was a faint smile on his mouth now.

  “That too. Your feet cold?” I could see his toes curling against the tiled floor.

  “Forget a horse; I’d give my kingdom for a pair of socks.”

  I leaned against a wall, and once I had my shoes off, I peeled off my socks and handed them to him. “Sorry, this is the best I can do.”

  “But your best is always so good, Mark.” He braced himself against my body and put them on, then straightened. “What day is it? How long did they have me?”

  “It’s May 29.”

  “I was here two weeks.”

  “Yeah.” I slid my feet back into my shoes. I hated being without socks, but right now that wasn’t important. “Did you think I wasn’t—”

  “How did you find me?” He turned into my arms and held onto me. “I… I didn’t think anyone knew where I was.”

  “Let me tell you something, Quinn.” I didn’t give a shit that he needed a bath; I stroked his hair. And damn, he had a lump behind his left ear as big as a yam. “There’s nowhere on God’s green earth that you could go and I wouldn’t find you.” I didn’t think he heard me, though. Which was good. It was a stupid thing to say.

  “Let me say just one thing, Mark.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you ever… ever… call me ‘buttercup’ again, I will kick your ass up and down the Boulevard Saint-Michel.”

  “Well, we can’t have that.” I ran my hand up and down his back.

  He sighed and leaned against me. “It took me forever to get the scalpel.”

  “What?”

  But before he could explain that, the door burst open. We whirled to face this new threat, shoulder to shoulder.

  Division operatives, led by de Becque, stormed in.

  “Ah. The cavalry to the rescue, if a little late.” Any later, and Quinn and I would have had to take on the rest of Prinzip on our own, but I didn’t say that.

  “The other members of Richard’s guard needed to be dealt with. They weren’t inclined to come quietly, which is why we were, as you said, a little late.”

  “Everything secure, M. de Becque?” Quinn put some space between us. Yeah, okay. We were supposed to be adversaries, not bosom buddies.

  “Mais oui, M. Mann.” Pete grinned at my lover. “I regret we meet once again under such circumstances.”

  “The prisoners?”

  “They have all been freed.” Pete barely glanced at the two dead men on the floor. “Richard?”

  I gestured toward the prone body.

  Reuben went forward, stepping carefully around the pool of blood, and put his fingers against the side of Richard’s throat, searching for a pulse. He fumbled from one side to the other before turning him over. “He’s dead.”

  “Mark, I told you the Division w
ould deal with him.”

  “Must have had a heart attack or something, Pete.” I shrugged. I wanted to go to Quinn, just to make sure he really was all right, but I picked up my jacket instead, and regarded the stains on it with distaste. I’d have to put in a requisition to be reimbursed for it; there was no way in hell I’d wear it again. I dropped it back on the chair, emptied the pockets, and transferred the contents to my trousers.

  “Not fucking likely!” Reuben sounded pissed, but he wasn’t my problem. “How do you explain this?”

  “This” was a scalpel sticking out of Richard’s throat. It had been thrown with such force that all that was visible was the short handle.

  For a second, I froze. Quinn had done that. I didn’t know how he’d gotten a scalpel in this place, how he’d managed to keep it hidden from those two goons, but somehow he had, and he’d taken care of the Administrator.

  Pete was waiting for an answer.

  “Suicide?” I suggested innocently.

  Before he could scoff at such an outrageous statement, Quinn created a diversion. “Are my people all right? I’d like to see them.”

  “Of course, M. Mann.” Pete snapped his fingers, and one of his operatives stepped forward. “Valdez will take you to them.”

  “Thank you. Vincent, don’t disappear. I’ll want a word with you.”

  “Mann, here, you might want this.” I offered him a roll of Pep O Mint Life Savers. He turned red and his hand went to his mouth. I pressed the Life Savers into his hand. I’d kissed him when he had the taste of my come in his mouth. Did he think a little staleness would put me off? “I thought you’d like something to suck on.”

  His eyes glittered, but he didn’t say anything, just put a Life Saver in his mouth and left.

  “I would have a word with you also, Mark. Reuben, please see that Housekeeping is notified. We cannot leave these bodies here.” Pete wasn’t happy, I could see that. I also couldn’t give a fuck.

  “Right, Pierre.”

  We were left alone. Pete nudged the body of Shorty with his toe. “Gaston le Couteau.” The head flopped obscenely. “He’s deadly. He was deadly. A nasty piece of work. Of course, he didn’t stand a chance against you, Mark.”