Soul and Blade (12 page)

He leads me down the hallway, stopping and smiling at an old man with a bobbing head between his legs. “I have to admit, the cells are fun, but this really is the Disneyland for horny men.”

We reach the bar—he still has not touched me or tried to hurt me. The bartender gives me a wry grin. “Is she having a drink then?” He’s got a thick British accent and a bit of stubble on his chin, but I would recognize him anywhere. He’s the UK’s bad boy of boy bands. His name is Winston Beauchamp. He’s only twenty-five, if he’s a day.

“She is having a drink with me. She does love a nice glass of dry red.”

Winston nods, giving me another look. “Ya got two different-colored
eyes, ya aware of that?”

I rack my brain trying to remember if this boy was ever at the lodge or if this is part of the game in Rory’s head. I don’t recall Winston’s name being on the list of men who frequented the brothel. Were some people’s names missed or is he trying to make me think that?

“She is. She’s not a big talker.”

Winston gives me a disappointed look. “That’s a pity. She’s got the sort of puffy lips ya like to see wrapped around the big chief, eh?”

Rory laughs and passes me my large glass of red. I lift it to my lips, not even caring if it’s poisoned. At least if I do die here, the wine is delicious. I can’t fault him for dreaming about amazing wine as a means to kill me. But I know I won’t be dying in here.

“How and why? Am I right?” He asks after a moment of creepy staring.

I nod, scanning the sea of faces. I recognize too many to keep track of them all.

“That man there, right there.” He points to an old man pawing a young girl. I know them both. The girl is Amanda, the younger version. And the old man is Old Dick, Amanda’s adopted father. He pulls her down into his lap and speaks into her ear. Her lips tighten, but she agrees and gets up, hurrying from the room.

“Old Dick was the Russian’s contact. My very first mind run, you remember that one.” Rory says it like he doesn’t care that I know this. “The girl in the accident with the Russian was coming here. They’d bring them into Mexico and cross the border at a certain spot. The Russian had been here loads, loved the place. He supplied all the European girls. When he was in that accident in Monterrey, the Feds in Mexico got there before any of the Russian’s contacts. He didn’t know he was under surveillance. When I did his mind run, my very first one, I got his version of this place and I knew I was working for the wrong side.”

He gives me a look. “Ya know, our side never has any of the good stuff.”

I don’t know whose version of “good” this is. It’s not mine.

He puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me down the hall, away from the bar, waving good-bye to Winston. “We never get to just do the things we really want. We save the world over and over, and no one even thanks us. They don’t even care. The normal people don’t even know we did anything. Here, every woman cares about whatever the hell ya want to tell her. This place is exactly the sort of place we need in our part of the world.”

“You force sex on them. The girl whose mind I went into was a child. Like Amanda, and like quite a number of these girls.”

“
’Tis true. We have to cater to it all, and by ‘all,’ I mean
all
. Some blokes just like a young girl.”

I try not to hear that last comment and change the subject. “How did you find the cells?”

He turns and gives me a blank stare, like he’s disappointed. “The Russian. Why aren’t ya paying attention?”

“The Russian knew about the torture cells?” I seem to be lost.

He laughs. “They were training cells. The girls were there a month before they transferred here. And only the girls who needed some coaxing and training went there. The eager ones came straight here. We can’t have a bunch of upset little girls running around, can we?”

“So the Russian would drop off the kidnap victims at the cells? To Old Dick? That explains why I never saw the cells in the mind of the girl on my first run. She hadn’t made it to the cells yet because she was in a terrible accident.”

“Look at you, all Jessica Fletcher.”

I choose to ignore him. “But how did you get Old Dick to show you the cells?”

His eyes sparkled. “That is the information of the season. Ya want this.” He strolls into a room with a fancy four-poster bed and closes the door. He leans his back against it. “I followed him there and then I killed him. I made it look like he was badly injured in his tragic accident. Then I started using the cells for myself. He had a few girls in there, but they weren’t my type. So I had them sent over here.” He looks me up and down, licking his lips. “Ya, however, are my type. Ya were the moment I met ya.”

“Did you ever love Angie?”

“She’s a fiery redhead in a doctor’s coat. What’s not to love? Plus she was as gullible as they come and likes to takes things to the next level. I’m all about the next level.”

I fill with disgust, staring about the room. “This isn’t real. You can force me to have ‘sex,’ but you’re not seeing me naked. You’re not inside me. It isn’t real.”

He holds a finger in the air and paces. “Ya know the fun thing about ya, Jane? Yer very susceptible to the world we build. That’s what happens when the past is shite and there are holes in yer memory. Ya let people fill them up.” He laughs like he’s got a joke on the inside I can’t see or hear. “I like the fact ya get lost in here so easily. And I know it’s what makes ya good at this mind-running business. Ya come in, all weak and confused, and within the first seconds of contact, that other person believes they are you and you are them. It’s a real gift.”

I feel like he’s stalling or planning something by distracting me.

He continues. “But I am not susceptible like you. It’s harder for me to become them, so I become their best friend. We kill together, we fuck together, we fight together, and we eat together. They tell me secrets and I tell them lies. I get my answers, just not the way ya do it. My version of a mind run is a mind fuck.”

“So the Russian told you everything in the mind run, you killed Old Dick, and started up with the cells. And then the ever-disgusting children of Old Dick wanted to sell the place.”

His lips are coated in saliva. He’s getting excited. “Aye, I let them take me to their mansion there in the city, let her tie me up and shag me. The weird brother jerked himself off the entire time. It’s a bizarre setup, that is. She’s a fatty, but I find they always try harder. Anyway, I found the will and made myself executor. A very prominent lawyer in Seattle had a reason for it to all work out. He was a member of the naughty club. He witnessed the change in executor. I knew then that Amanda was my best chance to fix it so the cabin was mine. I’d seen her fucked enough times in the Russian’s head to know she was a broken little bitch. I did all the things I needed to do to make her trust me. Once she contested the will, everything was tied up in the courts. I knew the judge, the lawyers, and everyone I needed to know to make it all go in my favor. I told Amanda my only fee was that cabin. It worked perfectly.”

“Why are you confessing all of this?” I can’t put together his plan or why he’s telling me how it worked.

“Jane, I’ll never leave this country again. I won’t be tried in the public. I’ll be locked away forever. I’m an Irish citizen, so I think it might not be easy to end me without paperwork building up, but they can’t just attach me to the international courts for this. I was an agent in the mind ruins, that’s top secret. So I will rot away or die in this coma they have me in. My best chance at happiness is right here in this room with ya. And here ya are. They sent ya right to me.” He takes a step closer. “My own little fuck puppet, isn’t that what ya called it?”

I flinch as he gets close enough to run his hand down my cheek. “Let Dash and Angie have each other. Stay here with me, stay in the warmth of this lodge. Every day will be a new and exciting one.” He leans in, lowers his wet lips on mine, spreading his disgusting sloppy kiss across my mouth. “I love ya, Jane. Ya make me want to be a better man.”

My knee comes up fast, driving into his groin. The moment I feel his stomach tighten at the impact to his balls, I shove him back and open the door. I run down the hall, hearing his laugh in a creepy echo throughout the halls, but I don’t stop running.

I sprint until I end up back in the bar. When I look down, I’m wearing a genie costume. Several men glance over, giving me a weird look. It isn’t the expression I expect. When I look down again, I realize the scars on my stomach are showing. My hands instinctively cover them.

Amanda and her adopted father, Old Dick, walk up the stairs to my back. I turn and follow them. I don’t think there is anywhere to hide in Rory’s mind. He’s fully in control. My best bet is killing him in here.

12. ALL NIGHT LONG

T
he dark of the closet I am hiding in, trying desperately to focus, feels safe. But I doubt I am safe. I close my eyes and try desperately to see Binx. I call him to me in soft whispers.

The air is cold, so I know I’m still in the brothel in the mountains.

“Binx, please come to me.” I whisper it again, but I don’t hear his little feet on the hard floor.

Instead I hear a heavy tread. I take a deep breath, willing myself to see that it is not real. He can do whatever he wants here, including raping me, because it’s not real. He is not touching me, nor is he hurting me.

But as the door opens, it’s not Rory I see. It’s Dash. He grins and I realize I have made him the bad guy in this mind run. Out of desperation and a lack of better options, my chip has kicked in my usual suspect. Dash, or rather Derek—the name I use with Dash’s mind-run identity—has joined the fucked-up world of Rory Guthrie.

He reaches down, dragging me from the closet. “Found you!” He glances back at a large man with three young women trailing him. “You go on ahead. Rory said I could have this one.” He slams the closet door and turns, not even speaking to me.

He pulls me to the door of the room with the Arabian theme, the one I recall with the girls dressed in genie costumes. The video I watched of the surveillance makes me shudder as Dash shoves me inside the room. His smile is wicked, evil even. Rory has let him in, not realizing the main reason Dash always plays the bad guy in the runs.

I cannot fear him.

Even now as he locks the door and cocks an eyebrow. “Remove my clothing, genie.”

I look down, almost rolling my eyes at the outfit I am still wearing. It might have been a sexy outfit on a normal girl, but a woman who is ex-military doesn’t usually have the flawless skin of a secretary or even an actual genie.

I walk to him, unbuttoning his dress shirt and loosening his tie. I drag it off and drop it to the floor. With him I can play this game, and right now he’s a sight for sore eyes.

“Rory said I have to be extra hard on you. You’re new.”

I nod, not sure what that means, but it doesn’t stop me from wishing I couldn’t feel pain here. Because it doesn’t matter how hard you tell yourself it isn’t real; when it hurts, it feels as if it is.

He pushes me to my knees. With trembling hands I undo his pants and drag them down. I don’t remove his underwear. I don’t want to see him naked here. I don’t want Rory to see him naked. I pull off his shoes and socks, stalling.

“Pull them down and put it in your mouth.” The outline of his massive erection is not hard to miss. I hate that I know what Dash looks like naked and I am going to impose that on Rory’s mind.

My hands tremble more, but I slip my fingertips into his waistband and drag the briefs down over the top of the erection that’s sitting at attention and brushing his stomach.

He moves it forward, shoving it near my face. I close my eyes and pretend we are home and this is normal. I grip the shaft firmly, sliding my hand down before parting my lips slowly and placing them on the tip. His hand drops into my hair as he thrusts.

I struggle against his thighs as he pumps into my mouth, choking me and yanking on my hair brutally. I gag and sputter. No matter how hard I fight him, he forces himself into my mouth.

He pulls back after a moment, leaving me gasping for air. I realize then I have been tricked again.

He’s got the subtle hint of a scar on his knee. I cringe as he laughs, and as fast as I was stunned by the sight of Dash, I am now stunned by the laughing face of Rory. His still-erect cock is bouncing as he steps, laughing and pointing. “I got ya.”

I jump up, running for the door. With his underwear halfway down, he can’t move as quickly as I can. I’m out of the Arabian room and running for the stairs when he finally screams my name, “
Jane
!”

My feet ache in the little genie shoes, but my pounding heart and dry mouth distract me. I’m certain I’m covered in a look of terror as I race down the stairs to the basement. I hurry for the room I never did see inside when I was in the real world.

When we took the brothel down, it was the room I wanted so badly to get into, the one I assumed held all the information on the brothel’s history. The one room that would actually show all the clients and all the victims.

In my place, a team of hand-selected federal agents looked through the room in the real world, but Rory’s memory of it might hold other clues to other crimes.

From the window in the hall, I can see the outside door is open. I rush for the door that leads right out into a blizzard and along the side of the building. The wall doesn’t look the way it did in the real world. Here the wall is open, like a hatch, and behind the panel that was a wall when I walked past it is now a glass door. I pull it open, pausing the moment I step inside.

The gray hallway with the elevator.

I sigh in disappointment that I might never see inside the stupid room, but with a little relief at seeing the elevator again. I press the button to close the door, and drop down into the corner. It takes a minute to catch my breath and my heart. The cold dankness of the elevator feels like a warm welcome. I close my eyes and sigh into the dark.

The elevator jerks to life.

I lift my head, watching the lights on the panel glow. Somewhere in that moment I lose the worry. I stand, in my ridiculous genie costume, and lift my hands. When the door opens, I am going to kill him with my bare hands, or die trying.

I have avoided combat with him; he’s stronger and faster and a better fighter. But I am far angrier than he is.

Coldness surrounds me as the numbers decrease and the elevator creaks and groans its complaints. When the door opens, I cock an eyebrow at the small boy tilting his head before me. “What are ya wearing?”

I lower my hands slowly and look down again at the ridiculous outfit.

“I never have seen a sister wear something like this before.”

“No. I don’t suppose you have,” I say, forgetting to use my Irish accent, and offer him my hand. “But I’m pretending to be a genie, so I can grant your wish.”

He looks confused, but he takes my hand and steps into the elevator with me. I squeeze, finding it conflicting to want to protect the boy and yet kill the older version of him. The door starts to close, but I slip a foot into the gap with a smile as I hear something—the scampering of little white feet across the broken gray floor. Binx climbs in and rubs himself against my ankles. Just as I’m about to tell little Rory not to, he picks the cat up. Binx doesn’t squirm. He doesn’t do a thing. He lets the boy hold him.

I press the very top floor, but I don’t care to let big Rory control the destination. I look at little Rory and smile softly. “If you could pick one place in all the world that this elevator went, where would it be?”

“To the good sisters who love the little boys.”

I smile. “Let’s close our eyes then and imagine that place.” I close my eyes too. “There’s a stone house. It’s very large. There’s a large front stoop with a porch all the way around, surrounded by a garden like no other. The gardens are mounds of black earth with colors shooting from them in every shape and color—daisies and roses and tulips. Crawling vines with purple flowers that look like stars and bushes of lavender infusing the air around you with a beautiful smell. Large trees provide shade and dark-green hedges keep you safe. Inside the house are rooms, more rooms than you can count. There
’s wallpaper with flowers, and fluffy couches for when you want to read a book from the massive library. Every boy and girl gets their own special room. Everyone is loved. The sisters, all the kindest women, dress simply, but they are more than they seem. They will be waving and waiting for us on a sunny day.”

I grip his tiny hand harder. “Don’t open your eyes when the doors open. Focus really hard inside, instead. That’s how the magic works.”

His breath hitches and his grip on my hands matches mine. Though he’s small and excited, he’s also brave and hopeful. I doubt it’s fear causing his hand to tremble—it might well be hope.

When the old groaning elevator stops moving with a jerk, I whisper, “You ready?”

The doors open and I smile when I feel the warm breeze. I crack one eye, grinning from ear to ear—it looks almost as good as the real thing did. To him it
is
the real thing. His smile is so big it takes over his entire face.

He grips my scowling cat and hurries out of the elevator, running onto the bright-green grass toward the women in soft-colored dresses. I step out behind him. Just as I leave the elevator, it drops behind us, crashing below.

I’m sure big Rory has heard, but I don’t even care. I now know the secret to his mind: the little boy runs the show. He has been here longer. Big Rory scared him and little Rory shut him out. He shuts out most of the bad stuff. Except the nuns, but they are all he really knows. Better than being alone, I suppose.

As the boy runs for the ladies, Binx squirms from his hands. As he lands with a plop on the ground, he shakes and turns back, giving me a look. I walk to him, lifting him into my arms. He’s my version of my cat; he will let me struggle-snuggle him.

The women surround little Rory, hugging him with wide smiles. He beams, practically glowing from love and affection.

He looks back at me with a wave and the scene changes.