Kev stared at the girl. She stared back, eyes wild.
He wondered if he could consciously trigger the oubliette. He never had before, but Jesus. He had to find a way, if Cheung tried to make him hurt that girl. "What the fuck are you doing with her?"
"Oh, nothing terrible," Cheung soothed. "We have big plans for Yuliyah. She's destined for the next X-Cog slave interface the next time my client needs a big job done. We finally got a reliable supply line of subjects, but every single one of my girls is spoken for. I certainly don't intend for you to hurt Yuliyah, or even leave a single bruise on her. I just want you to, ah..." She winked. "You know."
Fear clutched nastily at his guts. "You can't make me do that!"
"Oh, no?" Cheung's smile thinned. "I can make you do absolutely anything. I don't have a lot of experience in crowning men into sex, but it sounds like fun. And I love a challenge. Don't worry, if you're shy. I made arrangements for no one to disturb us."
"It won't work," he told her. "You can't regulate my blood flow, or hormones. You can't control my glands with that shit. And violence and rape are a huge, dick-wilting turn-off for me. Don't waste your time."
"So you think being a man protects you from sexual compulsion? Typical male arrogance. The connection between master and slave crowns is more complex now than it was in your day. There's more give and take, more exchange. And violence may not turn you on, but it sure does it for me." She giggled. "My heart is racing, already. I'm breathless and hot. And once I put that crown on you...you will be, too."
Yuliyah writhed against her bonds. Kev closed his eyes. He had to block Cheung out. He had no idea how he'd done it with Osterman. All he knew was the price that he'd paid for it. For eighteen fucking years.
"You know, I picked Yuliyah out of my stable on purpose, just for you," Cheung said. "She looks kind of like Edie, don't you think? I thought that might make it, you know. More exciting, for you."
His guts churned. He had to stall her somehow, keep her talking, preening, gloating. "A stable? How many girls are you holding?"
"I just got a delivery last night," she confided. "I was so excited. I have six, counting Yuliyah. All talented, all beautiful. They're already booked up, though. Lots of jobs to do. I have ten more on order."
Six now. Ten more to come. Jesus wept. "You're like Exhibit A in Criminal Psych 101," he said. "Dr. O tore you to pieces, didn't he?"
She giggled. "It's like Dr. O used to say about research ethics. If you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. The bummer is if you happen to be the egg, right? Right?" Her giggle got higher, shakier. She couldn't make herself stop.
She slapped him again. The sharp smack cut off her own hysteria, and she swayed, mouth dangling open, panting. "Everybody takes their turn to crawl," she said hoarsely. "You're turn's up." She came up close to him, and whispered into his ear. "And if you're good at your interface...if you're very good at fucking Yuliyah...if you make me come in my pants...I might even tell you your real name. Think about that."
She stabbed the needle into his arm. He gasped, arching.
The effect was immediate. Like a wasp's sting. The monstrous mother of all wasps. A rictus of cramping, agonizing pain.
His face was locked into a staring grimace. His teeth ground. His tendons stood out. He felt blood pulsing in his temples, pressure in his eyes increasing. As if he were screaming inside, but no sound came out.
Ava Cheung lifted up a silver mesh cap, set it on his head, and leaned close to set the little dangling sensors at various points over his scalp. The contact points had adhesive on them. She put a set of goggles on his eyes. She set a similar device on her own head, placing the sensors on herself without taking her eyes off him. She put a pair of goggles on, and grinned. "Now we'll see who's the victim, Kev. Now we'll see who's in control." She dragged in a deep breath. Her lips peeled back, her eyes closed. He was reminded of a mummified corpse.
She slammed into him. Oh Christ. Like being hit by a truck.
He fought, instinctively, as he felt her trying to make him move. But he soon realized that she couldn't. That connection was severed. His will to move was located someplace else, a place she could not reach. Of course, he couldn't reach it either. So what else was new.
He could feel her, flailing around in his brain. It hurt, but she couldn't get a grip on him. The block still held. Yes.
The emergency rewiring he'd done eighteen years ago still worked. Thanks and praise to the great Whoever. She could cut him into pieces, but she could not make him rape that girl. Pressure built, but that armored part of his brain was like a nut she could not crack.
She stepped back, eyes bulging with rage. "You son of a bitch," she spat. She grabbed another hypodermic from the table. Held it in front of his eyes, let him see the drop of liquid ooze out and shimmer on the tip of the needle. "Big, strong boy, huh? I guess you need more help than I thought. Let's see how a double dose affects you." Stab.
Another wasp sting. Incredible, that it could actually get worse. He hung there, rigid, enduring it. The realization formed, oddly calm. This shit would kill him. When the pressure got high enough, pop.
His only chance was the oubliette, but he'd always gone into it involuntarily. He'd never actually tried to get in.
Now was the time to figure out a way.
Of course, he might never come out. He might stay there in the dark until he wasted away, body atrophying, muscles and tendons shortening into the fetal position. Horribly conscious, waiting for death. Which would be long and slow in coming.
No good option. So be it.
He didn't know how he'd gotten into the oubliette, but he knew how he had gotten out. His little angel. Maybe she could lead him back in, too. So hard to concentrate, to still his mind, with Ava crashing around in there like a maddened bull. He called up Edie's image, her shining eyes full of light. He let it fill his conciousness, and the violence retreated into the background. Ava could flail around however she wished, in a room that was now empty. He took his leave, floated away.
Edie took form before him. She stood in the dark rocky tunnel that he knew very well, and beckoned to him. She glowed like a pearl.
He followed her into the darkness, letting her shining form lead him through the labyrinth. Ava pounded away, behind him. He no longer cared. He followed his love. Trusting her without question.
She lit up the tunnel with her inner light. She was his sun. He had no idea how far they went into the twisting darkness, but it was far.
And then, the door. Like something out of a medieval castle. Massive, made of heavy dark iron. Fastened with huge square bolts the size of a man's head. Fortified, spiked, speared, armored.
A key appeared in Edie's pale, slender hand. It gleamed in the light that came from her lambent form. She put it in the lock, turned it.
The door opened inward. She stepped back, beckoned him in. Inside was only darkness. Her eyes were so sad.
Grief clutched him. He was afraid to go in alone. He asked with his eyes if she could follow him in. She shook her head. No.
Do the hard thing. He steeled himself, walked past her, through the door and into the darkness. The door began to creak shut. Soon would come the hollow boom, locking him in the dark.
He turned to look back, though he knew he shouldn't, that it would only weaken him, torture him. And saw it, transfixed with horror.
The enormous black widow spider stood behind Edie in the tunnel. Her huge gleaming black abdomen reflected back Edie's light, distorting it. The fluttering shreds of its web clogged the rocky tunnel.
The way back was blocked. There was no way out for Edie.
Her eyes met his. Dark liquid dripped down her face from her eyes. A medieval madonna, weeping blood. The result of an X-Cog slave crown. She knew there was no escape from this trap. She was doomed.
Her eyes said good bye. The doors slammed shut. Crash. Dark.
Horror exploded inside him with the sound. Guilt, for dragging her into this,
for not protecting her better. Terror and denial and fury.
He'd fucked up. The hard thing was the wrong thing. The worst fucking thing he'd ever done. Holing up in here to cower like a trembling mouse in a burrow, while Edie was in danger. What craven bullshit.
This was worse than death. He'd thought only of himself, leaning on her, counting on her to lead him through his darkness like the ferryman of the River Styx. Using her, when he should be saving her.
Those monsters would eat her alive.
He couldn't stay in here. At the cost of blowing every last fucking capillary in his brain into mush, he had to get out of here. Right now.
The charge built inside him, and he stoked it, threw everything he had into it. All the nameless horror that he'd blocked from his mind, but not his body, or his heart. All the yearning and the loneliness, the mad frustration, those years of mute confusion. The towering rage.
The energy rose, like the gas pressure in a volcano about to blow a mountain miles into the air. Building, swelling--
Boom. The force of the blast knocked him out.
When his eyes opened, the pressure of the plastic band across his throat was throttling him. He was drowning. It took a minute to realize that it was blood, streaming from his nose down into his throat, clogging the air. Ava was on the floor. She, too, had a nosebleed. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, touching her head. Dazed.
Something was different. Night and day different. He was still locked in the jaws of cramping pain, but his mind...it was as light as a balloon. Like a huge rock had been lifted from it. The blind spot.
It was...gone. Gone. Oh, Jesus.
Images began trickling into that numb space. He saw Osterman, crowning him. Osterman, trying to force him to tell him something. But X-Cog compulsion was essentially useless for the purposes of extracting information, so Osterman had given him to Gordon to play with.
Gordon. Oh, Jesus. He remembered Gordon's torture now, and he wished he didn't. The burning, the cutting, the gloating. It floated back, chunk by chunk. Fragments of a screaming, bloody, endless nightmare.
Gordon hadn't expected him to fight back, that last day. Gordon thought that he was played out. He'd told Kev that was the day they'd finish him. Put out his eyes, cut off his ears, cut off his tongue, his hands, his feet, his balls, his dick. If he didn't tell them where Liv was.
Liv. Liv? Who was...he struggled, groped for it. Liv...Endicott.
Oh, God. Liv. Yes. He saw her, in his mind's eye, outside the library, her gray eyes full of fear. He remembered telling her to take the notebook to Sean, and to get out of town before they--
Sean? Who the fuck was...Sean?
His brother. His twin brother.
Images unfolded, full color, full feeling. Sean. Davy. Con. Dad. The house, the mountains. The Midnight Project. His life. His self.
Tears streamed down, mingling with blood. One memory triggered a hundred more, crashing down on him. An avalanche of memories, feelings. The formless longing he'd curled around, tried to ignore for years, it finally had a name. It was for them. Brothers. Family.
He'd found a burst of strength that day, in Osterman's lair. A lucky nerve pinch put Gordon down long enough to run, hotwire a car. He'd driven to Flaxon, God knows how, to blow the whistle on the Midnight Project. Bad call, choosing Parrish, the Flaxon rep. He should have gone to the cops. To anyone but Parrish. He hadn't been thinking clearly.
They'd put him down. And Gordon came, to retrieve him.
Osterman had been furious. He'd tried to compel Kev to mutilate himself in punishment. In his desperation, Kev had done...something to his own brain. He'd triggered the block. Hidden in the oubliette.
That was all he could remember, but the rest was easy to reconstruct. Osterman got bored with an unresponsive chunk of meat. He sent Gordon off to dispose of him. Tony found him. And that was it.
Ava was slapping again, had been for a while, but he was too overwhelmed by memories to notice. She swayed, blood streaming from her nose. "...do that to me? You bastard! You hurt me!" Whack.
He flinched, blinked. Tossed in a heaving ocean of feelings, memories. He couldn't process them all. Half a life had been more than enough weight for his brain, his heart, to bear up under.
"Don't do that again!" She wagged her finger at him, and he would have laughed, if he could. As if he chose this crazy shit. He was driven by a herd of buffalo, all running off a sheer cliff. Story of his life.
Cheung slammed that truck into his brain again...oh, fuck...
It was all different now. He was naked in there now. He'd blown his protective mechanism all to shit. And now she had him. Her claws sank deep, into nerves, will. She made him move, jerking against his restraints. The harder he fought, the greater her control. She grinned, gleefully. Her teeth were blood streaked.
"That's better," she panted. "Now we're talking."
He couldn't fight. He was a shambles, and she was loving it. Touching him from within, moving him, making the muscles in his groin clench and tighten against his will, as if he were aroused.
And he was. It was true. She really could make him hard, and he hated himself for it. His heart raced, his dick tingled and throbbed.
She reached down to pet it, well pleased. "Ready now, Kev?" she taunted. "Yuliyah is waiting." She petted his penis, her hand lingering, squeezing. "Nice. I see why Edie's so taken with you."
Mentioning Edie stung him, sharpened him. Rage stabbed deep, dragging him into focus. His passive defense was no longer operational. She'd backed him into a corner. All that was left was offense.
That heinous bitch was going down.
He held Edie's image in his mind, in case it was the last thing he ever thought of. Her shining body like a candle flame.
And stopped all resistance.
Cheung faltered at the sudden lack of purchase as he sagged in her mind, the mental equivalent of dead weight, and in that instant of disorientation, he leaped at her.
Ava flinched. She'd never been challenged by a slave-crowned subject. He followed up, drove her backward into her own self. No idea what the fuck he was doing, or how. Just clawing onward.
Her eyes bugged out. He was inside. Controlling her. The contact felt hideous, unclean, and horribly easy, too. She'd been groomed for years by Osterman for submission to mental dominance.
He felt echos of what she felt. Her self-loathing, which was so normal, so everyday, she no longer even perceived it. The distortion of the world seen through her mind; full of spite and danger. Stinking with corruption. Everything ugly, hated, despised, mistrusted.
It was like having his head in a vise. He forced her to move her arms, her legs. She was toppling. He forced her to catch herself.
There was a pair of clippers on the table next to the syringes. He forced Ava to stumble, stiff legged, to the table. To pick up the clippers.
She dropped them. He made her pick them up.
It took eight tries. Finally, she got a grip, lurched toward him. Her eyes darted crazily. Her mouth hung open, bloody mucus hanging off her slack lips.
First, the throat band, or he'd hang himself. He compelled her to lift the clippers to the plastic that bound his throat. He missed. Tried again. Missed again. Overshooting. Then he almost made her stab him in the throat. Narrow miss. Wouldn't that just be as ironic as all hell.
Got it. He forced the muscles in her hands to contract. Snip. His head sagged forward, limp, but he could swallow again, and gasp in air.
Then the hands. He had to do it blind, because his head was hanging down on his chest, but he finally got the blades around the plastic cuffs that held one of his hands. Squeeze. Snip.
One hand flopped down like dead meat, swinging uselessly. He wished he could jerk the clippers out of her hand and snip the last cuff himself, but Ava's arms were the only ones around here that worked.
Another long struggle, and Snip, his second hand fell free.
He fell, crashing full length, rigid as a toppling fir
tree. He hit, bounced, teeth jarring, helpless and stiff, muscles rigid. He could see Ava out of the corner of his eye. Table. Syringes. With his last bit of strength, he forced her to pick up the syringe. Her hand. So clumsy, so numb. They fumbled, struggled, to get the device into position.
He/she stabbed it down into her thigh. Shoved in the plunger with her thumb. He could feel the echoes of the icy cold burn through her. Screaming despair, tearing her mind apart.
He stayed conscious, until he felt her fall, right on top of him.
Darkness closed in around a shrinking fading circle of light, until it was a shining pinprick--and then it winked out altogether.
CHAPTER 28
"You sure about this?" Bruno braked outside the wrought irongate that marked the entrance to the luxurious Parrish home in Beaverton. He looked uncomfortable. "I'm not. I think this sucks."
"Completely sure," she assured him. "I have to go to my sister."
"You're aware of what this will cost me, right? Kev will redesign my skeleton. I'll be short a head, or missing a couple of limbs the next time you see me. And I loved being bilaterally symmetrical."
She appreciated his attempt to lighten the moment, but any laughter would tip her down that slippery slope into a hysterical fit. "Don't make me laugh, or I'll freak. I can't cry in front of these people."
Bruno looked puzzled. "But aren't they family?"
She thought of the embarrassment that had always greeted any displays of emotion in her family. The pills she'd taken over the years, to medicate those embarrassing feelings away.
"No," she said quietly. "I can't. It's complicated."
A tall, uniformed black man came to the driver's side of the car. Robert Fraser. She liked him better than any of the others on her father's security staff. He was always courteous to her, in spite of the example set by both his boss and his direct supervisor.
Robert murmured into his walkie-talkie. Bruno rolled his window down. Robert peered in at her. "Miss Parrish? You all right?"
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