And she did.
Gales of telekinesis roiled the chamber. The air howled with paranatural anguish as two mighty powers strove against one another, their forces almost perfectly matched. Their struggle was so intense that Ianushkevich could see the outlines of the tendrils of force, advancing, withdrawing, shifting in a continuous search for a superior lever, or a new fulcrum against which to turn. Yet the combatants stood so completely motionless that they might as well have been carved from stone.
Until the end.
Ianushkevich felt the balance give way. Alain Morelon's arms fell to his sides. He staggered, stepped backward, and sank to his knees. His face drained of blood. Slowly, grudging every inch, he bent forward until his face and chest were flat against the rock of the chamber's floor.
Victoria smiled viciously. She stepped forward to peer down at her fallen opponent, raised her hand high above her head, and let it fall.
As if he were trapped beneath a giant's foot, Alain Morelon's torso pulsed obscenely, once, twice, and exploded.
Chapter 29
Teresza awoke to the realization that she was being raped.
Foul sensations rushed in upon her: the earthen taste of a mouth packed with burlap; the rasp of the rough cord that bound her wrists; the unyielding restraint of whatever held them in place behind her head; the acrid odor of unwashed male bodies; the bruising grip of large hands upon her breasts and ankles; and the rhythmic jolts of a sweaty groin against her own.
She was being penetrated, but not by Armand. Every cell in her body knew him; her flesh would recognize his even if she were comatose. The hands that mauled her were not his. The organ that rasped against her innards was not his.
Against her will, her eyes opened to view her captors.
There were three of them. One held each leg while a third violated her. Her rapist was Burt Marchesand. He caught her return to consciousness and leered down at her.
"Enjoying yourself, girlie?" He mauled her breasts and thrust himself into her with specially savage force, and she gasped. "Better get it while it's hot. The next part won't be nearly as much fun."
She closed her eyes again.
***
"Nigel," Armand said, his patience exhausted, "you've had me here for two hours." He waved at the still. "I've been over every part of this thing three times. I tell you, there's nothing wrong with it. What on Hope do you want it to do that it isn't doing?"
Simpson shrugged. "I just don't think it's working right. We were getting half the yield we're used to, and a lot of clots and garbage in the brew. Are you sure there's nothing out of whack?" Behind him, his wife Maria, a frail, weary shadow of a woman in her late forties, cringed and wrung her hands repeatedly.
Armand rose from his knees, started to wipe his hands on his jeans, and stopped himself. "Maria, would you mind getting me a rag, please? I'd like to wipe some of this crud off before I go home to Terry." The woman immediately turned and ducked inside her hovel.
At the mention of Teresza, Simpson stiffened minutely. It wasn't much of a flinch, but Armand caught it and the tightening of the muscles around the forger's mouth in his peripheral vision.
What was that about? He's never had much to do with Terry. Envy that she's still young and beautiful, or just hostility toward me transferred to her?
If Terry weren't so sympathetic to Maria, I'd never have agreed to see this clown a second time. I wonder whose judgment is better this time?
"So you're sure you can't do anything about it, then?" Simpson said. He turned away and bent to fiddle in a nearby pile of scrap metal.
"Nope." Maria emerged with a rag in her hands. He took it from her with a murmur of thanks and rubbed off as much of the dust and still offal as he could. The sun was almost completely behind the horizon; it was past time for him to go. Even his reputation wouldn't protect him infallibly. "If this thing isn't working at peak form, you ought to think about what you've been giving it for feed stock. Maybe there's something interfering with the chemical process, rather than a mechanical fault."
"I see," Simpson said, still facing away. "Well, thanks for coming by, but it looks as if we won't be needing your services any more." In one motion he rose, whirled, and swung a heavy length of pipe at Armand's head.
What saved Armand was the difference in their heights. Simpson was too short for his decapitation strike to be flat and true. It had to be an uppercut. He misjudged the angle; the bludgeon glanced off Armand's left shoulder. Still, the impact was powerful enough to send Armand reeling, almost dropping him to the ground.
Simpson staggered, recovered, and loosed another two-handed swing, this time at Armand's belly.
But Armand had already recovered. He stepped forward, inside the arc of the swing. Simpson's clubbed hands smacked into Armand's pelvis, and the pipe clattered free. Armand took him immediately by the throat and bore down against his windpipe with both thumbs. Maria screamed.
Simpson gagged and made the noises of a man being strangled to death. His hands fluttered uselessly against his far larger and stronger opponent. Scores of Hopeless poured from the nearby hovels, summoned forth by Maria Simpson's scream. The nearest of them approached the conflict, saw who the combatants were, and stopped.
"What's this about, Nigel?" Armand said. "Are you unhappy about having to pay me for my time when I told you I couldn't do anything for you, or is it something else?"
He relaxed the pressure of his thumbs by a trifle. Simpson gasped, shook his head, and made a last effort to break free of Armand's grip. Armand bore down again, with a specially sharp thrust into the forger's voice box to emphasize whose life lay in whose hands.
"You'll only get one more chance, Nigel. I don't plan to stand here all day. Ready to talk?"
The forger, his face now entirely a purplish red, nodded frantically. Armand relaxed the pressure again.
"Then speak, and don't try my patience any further."
Simpson gasped with relief, frantically sucking in air as his face returned to a normal color. In the darkness around them, the crowd buzzed with confused speculation.
"Well, Nigel? It's getting dark and I'm getting weary of this."
Simpson coughed and wheezed. His wife tried to move to his side. Armand threw her husband supine to the dirt and thrust her away. He lowered himself onto one knee, directly onto Simpson's chest, and the forger cried out in pain.
"Time's up, Nigel."
"Terry..."
"What?"
"Your wife."
"What about her?" Armand hoisted himself upright.
Simpson coughed and rolled onto his side, curling into a fetal ball. His words were so faint Armand could not be sure he'd heard them.
"Marchesand has her."
***
Repeated rape had overloaded Teresza's brain. When she could no longer cope with the outrage being visited upon her, she sought shelter in unconsciousness, but without success. Even with her eyes shut and all her forces concentrated upon denying what was being done to her, demons swarmed to torment her.
Where's your lover? Why hasn't he ridden to your rescue? Why did he bring you here in the first place? To use as trade goods?
Since you came to Defiance, he's never been away from you in the dark hours, has he?
Maybe he's found something else to do with his time? Someone else to do it with?
These might be your new owners in perpetuity. How do you like them? How long do you think they'll give you to adjust to your new role before they give up, cut your throat and toss you into their midden?
Don't you think you could get to like this, given time?
Strain as she might, she could not repel the evil voices in the darkness. She tried recalling favorite times with Armand, reciting gene sequences and plant taxonomies, even repeating her own name over and over, in hope that if the voices could not be silenced, they might at least be drowned out. It came to nothing.
But at last a new voice, low and reassuring, broke through the chittering im
ps, blasted them away and blanketed her with calm.
Terry, I'm coming. I know where you are. Stay alive and strong.
It could only be Armand. She'd never before felt the touch of his mind against hers, but that gentleness and strength could belong to no one else. She strained toward it, but the power to reply was not in her.
He sensed her agitation and stroked her mind from afar.
Stay strong, love. It will be only a moment more.
***
Fifty yards from Marchesand's hut, Armand reined in his fury and stopped to ponder.
It could be a lure. Burt's bright enough for that, at any rate. If I go charging in like this, I could wind up dead on the floor a second later.
He closed his eyes, set his viewpoint free of his body and sped it toward the squalid little shelter where his love lay captive. In an instant he glimpsed a horror to vanquish every fear he'd ever known.
Teresza lay naked, bound and gagged on a pile of dirty rags. She was being raped by Burt Marchesand while two of his side boys held her legs apart. A third stood at the edge of the door, brandishing a large wooden club.
No matter how stealthily Armand approached, the advantage would be theirs. He had to thin the opposition from a distance or not at all.
I've done it before. But not under conditions like these.
It would take more than a spike of pain to the groin to halt men bent on murder. Men who knew that, once he'd found them, it would be kill-or-be-killed.
Have I the right to do what I must?
It was more than what he must. It was what he wanted.
Arne Stromberg had told him that his moral vision was trustworthy. Arne Stromberg had aimed a gun at his face, pulled the trigger, and trusted that he'd halt the flood of retribution that would follow.
He decided in his own favor.
***
Teresza could not know when rescue would arrive, or what form it would take. But she recognized it when it came.
Marchesand's expression changed suddenly. He withdrew from her, stepped back, and groped anxiously at his groin. His member had gone limp without preliminary.
The two men holding her legs released her and staggered back, emitting cries of ultimate agony. Their hands clutched at their chests. They gasped, clawed at the air, and collapsed.
From behind her came the sound of a heavy blow, followed by the sound of a third body falling: the crash of a man falling forward as if he'd been poleaxed from behind. At the extreme edge of her peripheral vision, she saw his face mashed against the dirt floor, bleeding into it.
Marchesand's mouth sagged open. His hands fell away from his flaccid genitals.
"May I join you, Burt?"
Armand's voice.
He stepped forward, glanced down at her, and bade her be calm with a raised hand. Marchesand, his sudden impotence no longer first priority, grabbed for a heavy stick propped nearby and swung it at Armand with murderous intent.
The blow did not fall. The stick halted abruptly six inches from Armand's face. Marchesand struggled to budge it and could not.
"You know, Burt," Armand said, "that's the second time this evening that someone's tried to bash my head in. The tactic doesn't seem to work too well. Got anything else?"
The bludgeon was wrenched from Marchesand’s grip by an unseen force. He fell back, hands raised in defense or entreaty.
With a fluidity that combined casual unconcern with the cognizance of irresistible power, Armand surged forward and took the thug by his shirtfront. His big fist smashed into Marchesand's face with crushing force. Marchesand tried to bring his own hands to bear, but Armand swept them aside with contemptuous ease. He struck again, and again, and again, faster and harder, blows too closely spaced for his target to react.
Marchesand sagged limply in his grip, all resistance dispelled. Armand let him fall to the floor. He lay supine, his face a mass of crimson pulp. His eyes were closed. He did not speak.
"Tell me, Burt, did you plan this out from the start, or did a little birdie suggest a collaboration to you? Did he tell you when I'd be conveniently away from home, tending to a still that had nothing wrong with it?"
Marchesand said nothing.
Armand shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't matter. Not to you, anyway. You've raped my wife and you've tried to kill me. Those are both capital crimes anywhere men are decent. Did you think you'd get some slack for them here, among the people you used to brutalize?"
Marchesand's eyes opened slightly. He tried to raise himself onto his elbows, but fell back to the dirt at once. His mouth worked, but no words issued forth.
"I was wrong to let you live, Burt. I won't make that mistake again."
Armand’s eyes slid closed.
Marchesand emitted a keening squeal. He put his hands to his chest, clawing at it as his henchmen had done. A few moments later, he shuddered and lay still.
Armand waited a moment longer, then nodded. He squatted next to Teresza and swiftly untied her. She threw her arms around him and howled with outrage and relief.
"It's okay, Terry. It's okay." He held her against him, stroking her hair and shoulders, until her tremors had abated.
When she could stand, he wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her out of that place of degradation and torture. Outside stood dozens of Hopeless, their numbers obscured by the gloom, no doubt drawn to the scene by her howls of anguish and Marchesand's death scream.
Armand halted before them, looked them up and down, and spat.
"Burt Marchesand," he grated, "is dead. Alex Lockley is dead. Harry Pontrefact and Milt Blumer are dead. I killed them. I did what any man would do if his wife were seized and gang-raped. What the lot of you should have done long ago."
The crowd was silent in the darkness.
"You allowed these men to ravage you for years. Did any of you lift a finger against them? Did anyone even try to rein them in?"
Still there was no reply. Armand snorted.
"I have one more retribution to deliver tonight: the man who lured me away from my wife to make this possible. I'll be seeing to that in a moment. But for now, if there's a man among you who thinks I've exceeded my bounds in this, let him say so to my face."
He scanned the rows of silent, shamed faces one more time.
"I thought not. Enjoy the gift. I'd advise you to bury them before they stiffen up and start to stink. I've done all I intend to do."
He led Teresza away. The crowd parted to let them pass.
Chapter 30
Teodor Chistyakowski knocked at the great oaken door of Morelon House and composed himself to wait. A few moments later it swung open to reveal Charisse Morelon.
The teenager looked as if she hadn't slept in half a year. Her face was pale, the skin drawn tight around her eyes, over her cheekbones and chin. She drooped at the shoulders and stood slightly bent at the waist, as if she begrudged the effort needed to stand. She greeted him with a half-smile.
"Hello, Teodor." She shuffled aside and beckoned him in. "How have you been?"
He shrugged. "No real changes. And yourself?"
She flipped a hand. "Did you want to see Mom? I'll see if I can rouse her."
"Maybe later. Is there coffee on the stove?"
That brought her eyelids all the way up. "Sure. Come on in the kitchen."
He followed her down the manse's main hall, watching for the appearance of Elyse or any of the other residents. None appeared.
She bade him sit and be comfortable while she poured coffee for the two of them. He sat uneasily, all at once aware that what he intended to ask, barely a year after the Morelons had lost their heir and only a month after the disappearance of their patriarch, could cripple the clan fatally. Over the centuries, the Morelons had presented an appearance of unbending strength. Even their manor spoke thus, its fieldstone walls and oak-beam thews seemingly unbreachable by any force Man or Hope could muster against them. But times had changed.
When Charisse brought the mugs to the table and
sat across from him, eyes expectant and expression more alert than he'd yet seen that day, he found himself without the words to begin.
This is cruel. I can't justify it. What was I thinking?
"Did you want to speak to me about something, Teodor?" The premature gravity in her voice, the voice that had once sung vibrantly with love of life and all the delights of youth, burned what remained of his resolve cleanly away.
She's already lost her brother, her grandfather, and what remained of her childhood. How dare I ask?
"Uh, yes, but maybe now isn't such a good time." He drank down his coffee in one long draught, though the heat of it scalded his throat, and started to rise. "Would you please tell Elyse that I stopped by, and give her all my best?"
"Teodor," she said calmly, "sit down. Please."
He sat. To his surprise, she reached across the table and laid a slender hand over his giant paw.
"We're all in the same boat, you know," she said. "It's actually sort of a relief to have you here. Mom won't talk about any of it, and I've been going a little nuts myself. Have you had...any new ideas?"
He nodded. "Just one, but it has promise. The problem is, I'm not equipped to pursue it myself."
"Oh? Why not?"
He scowled. "I haven't worked in a year, and I'm just about out of money."
"Are you here for a loan, then?"
The point of no return had arrived.
"Sort of. Is your ultralight available?"
Her brow furrowed. "We don't use it much. Do you need to borrow it?"
"More than that, dear." He drew a deep breath and looked away. "Will you be going to college in the fall?"
Which Art In Hope (Spooner Federation Saga Book 1) Page 20
