“Yes, Mistress, of course, Mistress.” He bobbed his head. “I’ll be right back.”
He scurried off to the washroom and I succumbed to my trembling knees, sinking down on the nearest chair despite its filth. Hell, it didn’t matter anymore. I was going to have to scrub off an entire layer of skin when I was finished here anyway.
In a few minutes Weasel was back, wearing sweatpants instead of jeans. My gaze dropped involuntarily to the stiffly-tented fabric at his crotch while my brain served up an unwanted memory of his voice saying ‘barbed leather cock bindings’.
I jerked my attention up to his face, which wore an expression of bliss. “Goddamn, this is so hot,” he whispered. “I almost jizzed just putting the bindings on. I’m so hard, my cock-”
“Shut up!”
My bark was a desperate attempt to avoid any more hideous mental images, but Weasel took it as part of the dominance play and let out a happy little moan of acquiescence. Picking up the whip, he knelt in front of me and offered it up with both hands like a medieval knight presenting a sword to his king.
I clenched my teeth and forced myself to take it from him.
“I’ve been bad, Mistress Jane,” he whispered. “I deserve to be punished.” He crawled back to the couch and bent over it, eyes closed, knees astride.
The whip handle was smooth and hard in my sweaty hand. I almost gagged at the sight of Weasel’s skinny ass quivering with anticipation under the thin knit fabric.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I didn’t need information this badly. I could just wait for the next assassin to show up. Hell, even death would be better than this.
Weasel was making pleading little whimpers, and I opened my eyes in time to see him squirming as though he was trying to masturbate against the fabric of his sweats.
A deep anger seized me. Goddammit, a year ago I’d been happily escaping the city to live out my dream of country tranquillity. And what did I get? Fresh scars, a whole new crop of horrific flashbacks, and a slimebucket like Weasel sticking his ass in my face.
In a single movement I sprang to my feet, my arm scything out in a savage backhand. The riding crop cracked across Weasel’s ass and he yelped, his hips driving forward against the couch.
Bile surged into my throat and I dropped the whip and spun away to gulp frantically.
Don’t throw up. Do not throw up.
Hunched over with my elbows on my knees, I gulped air.
Absorbed in my internal struggle, it took a few moments before I realized Weasel was whimpering eagerly and crooning, “Yes, Mistress, please, Mistress, yes, Mistress” over and over.
I breathed some more.
Weasel’s croons turned to begging. “Please hit me, please whip my ass, oh please Mistress…”
I drew a deep breath and straightened slowly.
Do it. Get it over with.
I reached for the whip again but my hand hovered above it. Wouldn’t close around it.
Do it, dammit.
I grabbed the horrible object and managed a few more smart strokes. By now Weasel was moaning and twitching, and with a shock I realized his spasmodic hip movements weren’t an attempt to escape the bite of whip as I had first thought.
No, it was something more nefarious altogether.
He was humping the couch.
That did it. I went to town on his ass.
“…seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty!” I threw down the whip. “We’re square.”
“Oh please Mistress don’t stop! Please, please, more, please! Please get me off, just one more, please…”
The frantic note in his voice tugged unwilling pity from my heart. Slimy and disgusting he might be, but he’d held up his end of the bargain. He was still fully clothed and both white-knuckled hands clenched the cushions of the couch, muscles knotted under the mechanic’s perma-grime that soiled his skin. Couch-humping notwithstanding, he hadn’t touched himself at all, which for Weasel was unprecedented.
“Oh please Mistress, please, I’ll do anything, anything you say, please just whip me again…”
“Our deal was twenty. We’re done.” I tried to sound hard and cold, but it was a struggle. I couldn’t believe I was actually feeling sorry for him.
“Please! I’ll get any information you need! Any time. Just ask. I’ll do anything! Whatever you want! Please, Mistress, I’m almost there, I need it so bad…”
I was weakening. In the miserable days of my first marriage, I’d been all too familiar with the desperation of being taken almost to orgasm only to be abandoned. My ex had delighted in refusing me that. In refusing me even the smallest pleasure…
I pitched my voice to a growl. “Anything. Any time I want it. For free. Forever.”
“Yes, Mistress, oh, yes, please, yes, anything!”
“Deal.”
The whip cracked and his ecstatic cries rose to the rafters.
It didn’t take long. After a couple more strokes he shrieked “Jesus!” and went into overdrive, grunting and moaning while he pumped like a spastic rabbit against the filthy cushions.
A moment later he collapsed to the floor and lay panting. “Mistress Jane… I love you…” he gasped. “Can I lick your shoes?”
“No.” I dropped the whip on top of him, feeling as though my hands would never be clean again. “Call Hellhound as soon as you have more information.”
I turned on my heel and stalked out on trembling legs, but not before his satiated moan reached my ears. “Best Mistress ever!”
I barely made it to the parking lot before I vomited, retching over and over until I had nothing left inside me.
Chapter 30
Creeping shakily into the truck, I denied myself the luxury of curling into a ball and turning off my brain. Weasel might come out and see me.
Be hard and tough.
I drove back to the store and returned the truck, thankful that the overworked man who returned my deposit didn’t seem to notice my white face and quivering hands. Sliding back into my own driver’s seat, I left a fake-cheerful message for Hellhound and then hit the road.
Nearly an hour later I finally stopped trembling. Interspersing sips of water with nibbles of peanuts and dried fruit, I slowly recovered enough to pay attention to the darkening countryside around me. Heavy clouds blotted out the last of the daylight, and as I switched to my country-bright headlights the first drops of rain spotted my windshield.
Shivering, I cranked the heater up another notch and marshalled my frazzled wits. That had actually gone better than I could have hoped. Despite its shattering effect on me, I had secured Weasel’s absolute loyalty. If there was any more information to be found, he would find it.
Now I only had to wait.
The rain got heavier and I turned up my windshield wipers, growling under my breath.
Some time later I was blinking heavy eyelids and patting my face in an attempt to stay awake when my cell phone vibrated.
Switching to hands-free, I accepted the call.
Hellhound’s rasp made me smile. “Hey, darlin’, I got your message. So everythin’s okay an’ you’re headed home? How did it go?”
“It went.” I grimaced even though he couldn’t see me. “Just call me Mistress Jane.”
He laughed. “Kinky. Dunno if that’s really my flavour, though.”
“That’s good, because I puked my guts out afterward.” I had intended it to sound like a joke, but my voice came out small and tremulous.
The humour vanished from his voice. “Aw, shit, Aydan, I’m sorry. I shoulda been there.”
“No, it’s okay,” I hastened to reassure him. “It wasn’t that big a deal, I just… I had a bit of a reaction because he had…” I had to stop and swallow. “A whip…” I tried a light laugh, but it nosedived to its death. “Like you said; not really my flavour.”
“Fuck. Where are ya, darlin’? Ya still got your key, right? I’m gonna be back in Calgary in a few hours, so go on over to my place an’ I’ll be there soon’s I can.”
<
br /> “Thanks, Arnie, but I’m okay. And I’m almost home now.” I changed the subject. “So you’re done? Everything went all right?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I added, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He let out a weary breath. “Same old shit.”
Maybe he needed me as much as I needed him just now.
“I could turn around and come back to Calgary,” I offered. “I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.”
“Nah, it’s okay, darlin’. Sounds like ya had a helluva day an’ I don’t want ya drivin’ all that way in the dark when you’re tired. I’ll see ya on Thursday, okay?”
“Okay…”
I didn’t really want to hang up, but asking him to stay on the line until I got home would just be pathetic. And he probably couldn’t anyway. He was probably still on duty, and he’d have to debrief, too.
“Well, thanks for calling,” I said. “Good night.”
“G’night, darlin’.”
The night seemed even darker when he hung up.
By the time I let myself through my gate, the rain was coming down so hard that I was soaked and shivering in the short time it took to get it locked behind me. When the overhead door rolled down behind my car at last, I let out a long breath and let my head sink back against the headrest.
I should go into the house and have a shower and a hot drink. Plus I should make an appearance on the surveillance cameras so when Brock returned to work and snooped in my footage he wouldn’t be able to say I hadn’t been home.
But shit, that wouldn’t help because I still wasn’t planning to sleep in the house. He’d see me coming out again, and he’d make some snide remark about me only coming home long enough to change clothes before I got in somebody else’s bed.
Forget it. Fuck him.
In fact, come to think of it, fuck the world.
I got out of the car and trudged over to fall face-first onto my air mattress.
Despite my fatigue, I couldn’t sleep. The sound of whip-cracks echoed in my mind and I fought the flashbacks of pain and terror.
After tossing and turning for a while, I swore and sat up. At least I knew what would help. I hauled myself out of bed and went over to flip on the overhead lights. Nothing like a little recreational wrenching to settle the nerves.
Turning to my ’53 Chevy, I smiled. Perfect time to get some work done on the new wiring system. Switching the original six-volt system over to twelve volts had seemed like a good idea when I made the decision, but I was no electronic genius. Painstakingly consulting the diagrams, I began tracing wires.
Draped over the front fender with my head and arms swallowed by the cavernous engine bay, I was securing a ground wire when a little gust of rain-drenched spring air reached my nose. Inhaling appreciatively, I made a single twist of the screwdriver before realization struck me.
The doors were all closed.
I was already in motion when a rough hand clamped onto my ponytail and an unfamiliar male voice growled, “Do what I say and you won’t get-”
Jerking upright, I whirled, my screwdriver slashing a lethal up-and-back arc.
His sentence finished in a shriek as the long bit ripped a deep red gouge up his cheekbone to slam into the corner of his eye. He reeled back clutching his face, blood already leaking between his fingers. I snatched my trank pistol out of its holster.
Too late. His foot dropped over the edge of the concrete slab.
He fell backward onto the plastic pail I’d used to cover the ends of the reinforcing steel.
The pail shattered.
He kept falling.
A scream tore the air as a blood-slicked spear of rebar punched up through his belly. His body arched in the horrible spasm of agony I remembered all too well, his arms flinging out, his knife falling from fingers contorted like blood-streaked talons.
Screams filled the garage, throat-ripping inhuman sounds that went on and on. My finger convulsed on the trigger and the tranquilizer dart found its mark, but the screams wouldn’t stop.
Again and again I fired, all control lost while I frantically jerked the trigger, pushing the pistol in front of me as if to ward off the horror.
Just as I realized the screams were coming from my own throat, everything went black.
Chapter 31
Consciousness returned slowly. I fought it, clinging to the dark safety of oblivion.
Something bad had happened.
I didn’t want to know.
Inexorably, sensation returned to my body. Throbbing ache at the back of my skull. Hard surface under me. Smells.
Safe happy aromas of rubber and warm engine oil.
And the pungent blood-and-shit reek of ruptured intestines.
Whimpering, I dragged my uncooperative body into a ball without opening my eyes.
At last my brain ground into motion despite my best efforts. I’d fired the entire trank magazine at close range and gassed myself with the aerosolized tranquilizer. Must’ve hit my head on the way down. Lucky I hadn’t killed myself.
The concrete floor was hard, but I didn’t want to move or open my eyes. At least it was warm. I’d just stay here…
I couldn’t stay here forever. Somebody would find me. If it was a civilian, I’d be in deep trouble with Stemp. If it was another assassin, I’d be dead.
I slowly uncurled and opened my eyes.
The impaled body was only a few feet from my face.
Screams ripped from my throat again, my body starfishing involuntarily in the attempt to escape. My frantic flailing resolved into a panicked backward scoot on hands and heels until my back slammed into the side of the Chevy, slapping some sense into me.
Fighting the terror of the flashback and the gruesome sight in front of me, I throttled my screams down to hysterical whimpers. My heart tried to hammer its way out through my backbone.
Unable to look away, I stared wide-eyed. Waiting for his screams to begin again. Waiting for the limply-dangling hands to contort into claws and strain upward in desperate supplication. Waiting for the broken body to writhe…
Nothing happened.
Breathe.
I clamped down on my shrill panting, slowing it to deep ragged gasps of air. My head throbbed with the thudding of my pulse and a fiery path burned from my throat to my chest, searing with every breath. My eyes stung. Finally I had to blink, realizing as I did that my cheeks were wet with tears.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’m okay. Just a flashback. I’m okay. Just breathe…”
Slowly my muscles began to cooperate, releasing from their rigor to dissolve into quivering blobs of mush.
This ugly thing was in my beloved garage.
My safe haven violated; the last of my bright dreams defiled.
My heart crumbled to dark powder, my guts twisting with pain sharper than barbed wire. Utterly bereft, I curled into a ball and cried the great wrenching sobs of a lost child.
At last my tears stopped. Dry sobs still shook me, but I stifled them to silence.
The cold emptiness expanding inside my chest made thinking easier. Trembling in every limb, I dragged myself to my feet and stood staring at the corpse.
And he was definitely a corpse. No breath moved his chest around the gory steel spear and his body hung limp, hands slack at the end of stiffly-outflung arms. The gravel beneath him was dark with blood and less attractive things.
Nine tranquilizer darts bristled in his neck and upper body. I couldn’t believe I’d only missed with one. The way I’d been flinging that pistol around, I shouldn’t have been able to hit the broadside of a barn.
Then again, it had been point-blank range. And it wasn’t like he could go anywhere.
A bark of humourless laughter startled me and made my throat hurt more. Drawing a deep breath, I stepped carefully down onto the gravel of the excavation, the short drop feeling precarious on my shaking legs.
As a formality I checked for a pulse in the body’s neck. There was
none.
I considered searching him but my box of nitrile gloves was on my workbench, which seemed miles away. Screw it. Stemp’s team would do a better job anyway. I plucked the darts out of the body and stowed them in my pocket.
Lurching up out of the excavation again, I stumbled over to lock the garage door. Had I locked it earlier? I couldn’t remember. Maybe my intruder had picked the lock.
It didn’t matter.
After a moment of thought I turned out the lights. From the darkness outside, the bright interior would show up through the windows like a horror-show stage if anybody glanced in. Shuffling cautiously back by the dim illumination of the trouble-light half swallowed by the Chevy’s engine bay, I navigated to where my waist pouch lay beside my air mattress. I extracted my phone and called for a cleanup crew, then sat staring numbly into the darkness.
After a few minutes I roused myself and swapped the empty trank magazine for the full spare I’d tucked in my holster. Then I busied myself covering the windows with a couple of small tarps and some cardboard I scavenged from the lift’s packing crates.
Once that was done I huddled into the corner of my mattress, but after a moment I evicted myself from there, too. I couldn’t sleep there tonight. Probably never again.
I had just finished deflating the air mattress and trussing my pillow and sleeping bag into a neat bedroll when the sound of tires on gravel made me stiffen and reach for my Glock.
Screw the trank pistol. Blowing out a kneecap would immobilize somebody just as effectively, and probably provide an incentive for some confessions, too.
My cell phone vibrated and I whisked it out. The text message’s words made me ease out a slow breath.
“Clean-up crew outside.”
I texted back, “Thanks, be right there”, and went over to unlock the door. When I opened it the same two techs stood outside, their dark van fading into the blackness at the edge of my yardlight. Beyond my gate I caught a glint of chrome through the silver-black sheets of rain. Must be the assassin’s vehicle. I hadn’t even heard the crunch of tires on gravel over the pounding of the rain.
“Hi again,” I said, my voice rasping painfully over my raw vocal cords.
Spy Away Home (The Never Say Spy Series Book 10) Page 23
