by John Bowers
Royer screamed.
Erik dragged him out of the chair by the neck, then dumped him on the floor and withdrew the blade. Klara screamed nonstop throughout the ten-second attack.
Royer writhed on the floor, trying to reach the wound with his right hand, sucking for air now that he could breathe again. Erik stomped his groin, crushing tender meat giblets under his heel, and Royer’s head surged upward, eyes bulging, his skin purple. Vomit spewed onto his immaculate ebony uniform.
Erik drew the pistol and pointed it at Klara, who was still shrieking.
“Get on the floor!” he shouted, “and shut the fuck up!”
“Oh goddess, don’t shoot me!” she screamed. “For the love of Sophia—”
“Shut up!” he shouted again. “The Sword of Sophia doesn’t kill Vegans!”
She clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide.
“You!” she gasped. “You’re the Sword?”
She backed against the wall, shaking like a leaf.
Erik dropped the pistol back in his pocket and picked up the bowl of soup. It was still hot, practically boiling. Royer was gagging on the floor, coughing against the agony in his kidney and groin. Erik poured the bubbling soup over his face, a steady trickle of lava that blistered every inch of flesh it touched. Royer screamed again—or tried to; he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs, so it came out more as a hoarse, reptilian hiss.
But Erik wasn’t finished. He had killed well over a thousand Sirians simply because they wore the uniform. He’d felt no personal animosity toward any of them, but this one was different. This one was extremely personal. Erik knelt beside the bleeding, tortured man, the bayonet back in his fist.
“All right, motherfucker, listen up!” he snarled. “You wanted the Sword of Sophia, so here I am. What the fuck are you going to do about it?”
Royer convulsed on the floor in unspeakable agony, but he was still lucid. His eyes locked on Erik’s face from between puffed and blistered lids; the eyes were wide and white, bulging from terror.
“Valyn Kristensen!” Erik gritted between clenched teeth. “You raped her once a week from the day she started working for you. You forced her to surrender her virginity before she was ready! You fucked her like a goddess-scorn whore, and she was a good girl. And then—today—you killed her. You shot her between the eyes and blew her beautiful brains out, simply because she was in love with me and warned me to run.” Erik gripped him by the throat and brought the bayonet point within an inch of his right eye. “Normally I would just kill you and be done with it, but you—you are a special kind of pervert, and you have to hurt before you die! Do you hear me?”
Royer—stabbed, stomped, broiled, and gagging—nodded. He trembled in panic as he stared at the bayonet. His bladder let go and a yellow puddle of urine spread from beneath him, mixing with the slowly spreading pool of blood from his kidney. Erik loomed over him, his muscles clenched with fury and hatred, and leaned his weight on Royer’s throat until the man was barely conscious. Then he relaxed his grip a little, because he wanted Royer awake for what was to come next.
“You’re going to win this battle,” he said more quietly. “The SE will get me, I have no doubt about that. And that’s okay, because I knew from the start how it was going to end. But you—you’re going to fucking lose! You don’t deserve to live, and if I never kill another Sirian it will all be worth it because I made you pay!”
Erik drove the bayonet into Royer’s left hand, pinning it to the floor. Royer tried to scream again, and his boots hammered the floor in protest. Erik pulled the blade free.
“What shall I cut next, Colonel? Hm? Maybe your pee-pee? You like to use that, don’t you? You like to punish innocent girls with that. Makes you feel big, doesn’t it? Makes you feel big and strong, like a real man!”
“No!” Royer’s voice was hoarse, rasping, but he somehow forced the words out. They hardly sounded human. “Not that! Please!”
“What?” Erik leaned over him. “What was that you said? Did you say please?”
Erik drove the blade into his groin and twisted it. Royer howled like a deranged demon.
“Did Valyn say please?” he demanded as Royer’s head bounced in futile protest against the pain. “Did she beg for her life, Colonel? Did you show her any mercy?”
The bayonet plunged deep again, and again Royer’s body whiplashed.
“I don’t think you did, you motherfucker! I don’t think you showed her any mercy at all! I think you enjoyed killing her!”
Another plunge, and whatever might have remained of Royer’s genitals were no longer a threat to Vegan womanhood. Blood streamed from the holes in his ebony-clad crotch, and Erik, nearly spent, leaned over him again.
“I’d like to stay and shoot the shit some more, Colonel,” he said, “but I have more people to kill. People just like you. The only difference is—I’m gonna show them a little mercy. I’m gonna make it quick for them. Because they may be the enemy, but they’re not like you. You are a special case.”
Erik stabbed him in the right eye, obliterating the eyeball; then, with one final plunge, he took out the left eye as well. He stood up slowly, breathing heavily, blood and piss staining his pants leg. For a moment he stared down at the tortured shell of what had been a man, a shell which still lived, which still drew breath. He had fully intended to murder the SE colonel, but now he changed his mind. Valyn had been avenged, and so had all the other girls Royer had raped, all the women he’d sent to slave ships. The prophecy said the enemy would be torn asunder, and Royer was definitely sundered. Let him live with what was left to him, if he could. See how he liked it.
He wiped the blade on Royer’s uniform and pulled spare ammunition clips from Royer’s belt, then took a step back. Klara still huddled against the wall; the elderly man at the rear table was still eating quietly, as if unaware of what had just happened. Maybe he was deaf.
Erik turned to Klara.
“If you’ll give me five minutes before you call an ambulance, I’ll appreciate it. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, I understand.”
Klara stared at him through red-rimmed eyes.
“That’s it?” she asked. “You’re not going to kill him?”
Erik shrugged. “I was going to, but I think I made my point.” He held up the bayonet and turned it slowly.
She blinked and rubbed her eyes with both hands.
“Protect yourself,” he said. “Tell them everything that happened. My name is Erik Norgaard and you saw me on the news. I pointed a gun at you and you were afraid for your life. They’ll believe you.”
She nodded jerkily. “Sophia’s tears!” she whispered.
Erik smiled. “Sophia’s tears.”
He turned and walked out of the diner into the snow.
Chapter 32
Thursday, 3 April 0200 (PCC) – Reina, Vega 3
The Sanctum was warm and quiet in the early afternoon, dark and secluded. Comforting.
Erik had avoided the major downtown streets as he wound his way toward the Kongelig Temple, one of five largest in the city. He had been inside this one rarely as a child, but it was a duplicate of the River Temple where he’d been baptized, where he’d gone with Valyn, where the young priestess had first quoted the prophecy to him. He’d been reluctant to come here at first, but he needed to get out of sight…and out of the snow. He was gratified that the place was deserted.
The goddess towered twenty feet into the air, a stunning depiction of feminine perfection, a rippling rainbow of color. As a child the goddess had been very real to him, larger than life. Even now, jaded as he’d become, she was a sight to behold and stirred something deep in his psyche.
He dropped into a seat on the bottom row and laid his head back, physically drained and mentally exhausted. It was barely one o’clock in the afternoon and his day had already been very long. He wasn’t sure what to do now, but he couldn’t do anything worthwhile until dark. Every uniform in the city was looking for him, and t
he citizenry had been threatened if they helped him, so it was likely some of them might turn him in if he was spotted.
The temple was the only sanctuary he could think of.
And it had meant everything to Valyn.
* * *
A grey-clad Confederate soldier escorted Erika Sebring into the cellblock and down a short corridor to a door at the end. He unlocked the door and stood back.
“Yew have five minutes, Miz Sebring.”
“Thank you.” Erika stepped inside the cell and the guard locked it behind her. Brandon Marlow lay face-up on a bunk, his hands behind his head. He was still in uniform, but his boots and belt were missing. He grinned lazily.
“Well, looky here. The condemned man gets a last meal.”
Erika smiled uneasily and sat down abruptly on the bunk across from him. She was wearing a heavy overcoat, still flecked by snowflakes. Her too-tight skirt threatened to split under the pressure of sitting down.
“I heard what happened,” she said quietly.
Brandon nodded and sat up. “Pretty grim shit,” he said.
“That poor girl. Did you know her well?”
“Not well. She started in January, while I was on Sirius picking you up. I met her when I got back.” He shook his head unhappily. “She was a nice kid. She at least deserved some kind of hearing.”
“Who shot her? Royer?”
“No, the Norgaard kid.”
Erika’s eyes widened. “Isn’t she his brother’s girlfriend?”
“So rumor has it. But the kid is desperate to be accepted, and he read Royer perfectly. When I wouldn’t do it, he just drew and fired. Without being asked.”
“Hans!” She shook her head in disbelief. “I just met him over the weekend. He was on that trip we took to Princess Carlena County. He seemed misguided—” She stopped, realizing how that would sound to Brandon. “—from a Vegan point of view,” she amended, “but a nice kid.”
Brandon nodded, ignoring her gaffe. “He’s the darling of the VYC,” he said. “The most promising prospect to come out of that program so far. And if the VE takes off the way it’s supposed to, he’ll be one of the top men very soon.”
Erika glanced around the cell, which was new and in good condition. Spartan, but clean. “How long do you have to stay here? And what happens next?”
Brandon pulled a cigarette out of his tunic and lit it, then released a sigh.
“I have to make a choice—face a court martial or just resign from the SE.”
Her eyes widened slightly with hope. “What are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “Haven’t decided.”
She hid her disappointment, realizing that, no matter how much she might want him to quit, such a decision wouldn’t be easy for him. “What’s the alternative?”
“If I stand trial at court, I might get an acquittal, which would make this all go away. But if I’m convicted, I could get twenty years in the stockade.”
“What are the chances of an acquittal?”
He grimaced and tilted his head. “Considering the circumstances, not real swell. Disobeying a direct order is damn near a capital offense in the SE.”
“Then it sounds like a no-brainer,” she said. “Avoid the court martial.”
He nodded. “I have until tomorrow to decide. Royer wants my answer in the morning.”
Erika’s heart hammered suddenly. Her lips parted as she realized the decision might be easier than he thought…but she wouldn’t like his choice.
“You haven’t heard,” she said slowly.
“Haven’t heard what?”
“Just a couple of hours ago, the Sword of Sophia got to Colonel Royer.”
Brandon jerked upright, alarm in his eyes. “What!”
Erika nodded. “Somehow the Sword knew where Royer went for lunch. He was waiting for him.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, but…he’d be better off. The Sword mutilated him. Blinded him in both eyes, carved up his genitals, stabbed him in the back—I don’t know what all.”
“Jesus Jumping Christ!”
Erika stared at him. “What does that mean for your situation?”
Brandon shook his head slowly, still stunned.
“I don’t know. If Royer hadn’t filed the paperwork yet…even if he didn’t, he still can, assuming he survives.”
She reached across and took his hand, squeezed it.
“Brandon, don’t take the court martial. If you have a choice, keep your freedom.”
He gazed at her a moment, then squeezed her hand in return.
“I plan to. One way or another.”
* * *
“You have come for sanctuary.”
Erik’s eyes popped open. He had lowered half a dozen seats and stretched out on them, using them as a bed. He’d been dozing for half an hour.
A priestess was standing over him, gazing down, her eyes peaceful and serene. This one was older, in her late thirties, but stunning. It really was too bad the Temple priestesses had to remain virgins for life. He’d never seen one yet that didn’t arouse him.
He swung his feet to the floor and sat up, rubbing his face wearily.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“The Sword is broken.”
He blinked at her—how did these holy women always recognize him?
He yawned. “It was a lousy prophecy.”
“It is a necessary prophecy, but it is now fulfilled. The invader is torn asunder, and sore vexed.” She made the Sign of the Cult in the air above his head. “It is done.”
He sighed. “So what happens now? I’m a wanted man.”
“Sophia will decide. You have followed the Path of Rightness. You have fulfilled Sophia’s prophecy. You have avenged the suffering and the fallen. Sophia’s mercy is without depth.”
“I’m a dead man.”
“In Sophia you will live forever.”
Erik stared at her in dismay—that wasn’t much comfort. If he really was the sword of Sophia—if he had really, actually fulfilled the ancient prophecy…that was it? He would live forever in Sophia? What about now? He was a young man, only twenty-five. He should have his life ahead of him, but instead he was looking at certain death. Was that how Sophia rewarded her instruments?
“You are troubled,” she said.
He laughed and held his hands out to his side.
“It just seems pretty scorn futile,” he said. “You say I fulfilled the prophecy, but what have I accomplished? The Sirians still rule, women are still raped, the slave transports are still running—what good was any of it?”
“There will come another,” she said softly. “A young girl, as yet unborn, a queen. She will remove the invader’s boot. For every enemy you have killed she will kill fifty.”
Erik stared up at her in disbelief. This was getting too weird.
“Which prophecy is this? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Not everything is recorded in the Scroll,” the priestess said. “Among the Order of the Temple there are oral prophecies that have not been made known. The prophecy of the young queen is one of these.”
“A queen. From the House of Ursula?”
“No, my son. She is from your family line, a continuation of the Sword.”
Erik leaned back and closed his eyes, his face pointed at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry, Priestess, but that just doesn’t make any sense. I’ll be dead by tomorrow. How can I…?” He stopped, his eyes sprang wide. He pinned her with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Hans?”
“The prophecy does not reveal the details. Just know that Sophia is wise. Sophia works in mysterious ways.”
“Hans is a Sirian sympathizer!”
“Do not trouble yourself, my son. The prophecy is for the future. Sophia will see it done, when she is ready. Would you like to commune with her now?”
Anger burned in his gut, but it was a futile anger. He had made the decision to become a terrorist. He had, himself. The prophecy had nothing to do
with it. He would have done it even without the prophecy. So what right did he have to be angry with the priestess, or even Sophia, for that matter?
He looked up into the woman’s eyes, and saw the kindness, the caring. Unexpectedly, his eyes stung, and tears flooded down his cheeks. He lowered his head and sobbed. He had lost his faith during the war, had rejected it ever since. Too many had died, and Sophia had not intervened. But he was still a child of the Temple. His mother had baptized him as an infant, and now she was gone. She would be hurt if he turned from it now, at the end of his life. And what was the point? Agnosticism wouldn’t save him; there was some kind of power here, something he didn’t understand, but he could see it in the priestess’s eyes, could feel it in his blood. The prophecy had played out exactly as the Scroll predicted, and now there was another, one he had never heard. Suddenly, somehow, he was certain it would also come to pass.
He reached for the woman’s hand, drew it to his lips, and kissed her ring. He looked up into her fathomless eyes.
“I’d like to commune with Sophia now,” he said.
Chapter 33
Thursday, 3 April 0200 (PCC) – Reina, Vega 3
“Goddess scorn!”
Hans Norgaard peeled off his uniform tunic and flung it against the wall. Norma Teasdale closed the door to their quarters and dropped her shoulder bag on a bunk. It had been a long, tiring, frustrating day.
“I know what yew need,” Norma said, her lips curled into a smirk. “After that, maybe a shot of Lightning.”
Hans turned to look at her, his eyes tormented.
“How can you take it all so lightly!” he demanded. “My ass is on the line with this one!”
“Yewr ass is just fine,” she said, stepping up and patting him on the butt. “And whatever it needs, I will take care of.”
She wrapped her arms around his bare torso and began sucking his left nipple.
“Norma…” Hans squirmed. “That tickles.”
She grinned up at him and reached for his crotch. “Then let me tickle somethin’ else.”
