Starlaw (20 page)

His uniform tunic had been removed, leaving his chest bare. Ropes were tied to his wrists and booted ankles, stretching him between two columns. The wizard who'd rendered him unconscious could have easily killed him, but that wasn't the plan. The vamphieres wanted him to suffer. That was apparently why the skills of a master wizard had been employed.

“So … you're the famous Commander Starlaw.”

The Gloxynian wizard moved from the shadows and stood before his captive. A gloating look was plastered on his face. Darius silently noted how his captor's dark blue robe swirled. He saw the older man thoughtfully stroke his long white beard as if considering the next round of torture. There was nothing to say. He steeled himself for what was to come.

“You made no sound when my sensor crystal electrified your body. That was most unusual,” his captor mused. “We shall see if you can maintain control or if, like so many of your kind, you die screaming. Don't disappoint me, Commander. I become inventive when I'm disappointed.”

Darius's eyes narrowed. He strained at the ropes binding him only to find they tightened with struggling.

“Whip,” the wizard ordered as he simultaneously held out his right hand and turned to one of three vamphieres present.

He was handed a whip with various pieces of glass, metal, and rock shards tied within its flailing straps.

The wizard slowly smiled. “The flesh must be readied.”

Darius stared blankly ahead. Gloxynians prided themselves on the fear they induced.

The wizard circled him slowly. When the man stood behind him, the whip was applied. Darius gritted his teeth and clenched his bound hands. The whip came down on his flesh over and over, but he made no sound. He looked straight ahead and fixed his mind on getting home.

For the first time since Astral and Kyrie died, he feared his own demise. He thought of his parents and siblings. Barst, Gemma, and especially Laurel. He'd have given anything to hold her for just one long night.

Suddenly, the beating stopped. His torturer threw the whip to the floor in frustration and moved in front of him. The wizard's yellow smile was uneven and sickening. It occurred to Darius that this man liked his job far, far too well.

“Well done, Starlaw. But we'll see how you fare against
these
.”

The wizard walked to a nearby table and picked up a large jar. When several nearby vamphieres moved away, Darius's heart sank.

As his torturer approached again, he literally felt blood drain from his heart. He would rather be incinerated outright than to have the creatures in the jar placed near him. With his back scored open and bleeding, the slug-like, fat animals with glowing red eyes—known to just about every enforcer as
drillers—
would have a ready entrance into his body. These were particularly large, spanning the distance of his index finger. Still, he fixed his mind against flinching or crying out. The Gloxynian would have to glean pleasure from some other source.

“You're not impressed?” the wizard asked. “When they enter you, everyone in this building will know. Even
you
cannot withstand that kind of pain, Starlaw. And what a story I'll have to tell. I'll relate how the legendary heir to the throne of Luster begged to die. I'll even have my vamphiere friends record it for posterity.” The wizard sneered. “Shall I tell you what these creatures can do to a man? Or perhaps you've heard.”

When the wizard moved closer, Darius smiled slowly then spat right into his face. If he could anger the man enough, the torture wouldn't go on much longer.

His enraged captor shrieked in rage, pulled the lid off the jar, and threw it to the floor. It broke into shards as the wizard purposely moved closer. Each step was meant to extract fear. Darius vowed to show none, whatever it took.

The wizard held out his hand and one of the guards placed a pair of tongs in it. With these, he extracted one of the creatures from the floor where they lay amongst shards of broken glass. Then the wizard slowly and deliberately moved to stand behind Darius.

At first, he felt nothing. When the stinging began he stared at an old tapestry across the room and firmly planted himself into the bucolic landscape portrayed there.

“You will respond sooner or later,” the wizard promised.

Darius felt more of the creatures being applied to open wounds. The slimy, gray slugs writhed on his flesh as they tasted blood. He swallowed hard but made no sound.

Eventually, his intentions weakened. The pain endured from the wizard's crystal was nothing next to what he felt now. He truly wished for death.

From his peripheral vision, he noted how even the vamphieres lowered their heads and backed away. Even
they
didn't want to look as the beasts ate their way into his body. Worse, they'd grow as they gorged.

“We'll see, Commander. We'll see who wins!” The Gloxynian backed away to admire his handiwork.

• • •

Laurel heard a cackling voice coming from the chamber directly ahead. The door was cracked open. From it, flickering light illuminated shadows of moving bodies. According to her instrument, Darius's tracking device was in that room. Whether he was still attached to it was another matter.

She lowered her hand to her boot and pulled out a small laser pistol. Had security on this planet not been so lax, she'd likely not have gotten this far from the airfield with it, nor would she have been able to exit the
Titan
from a service duct far beneath the ship's belly.

She breathed deeply, reminding herself how to aim and fire the sidearm as Barst instructed. The thing was as automatic as it got. Using it was the least of her troubles. First, she'd have to get past any vamphieres that might be present.

Thanking her mother for the endless ballet lessons she'd once hated, she employed that grace now and moved closer to the door. From there, she quietly gazed through the small crack as she raised her sidearm.

What she saw made her back into the shadows again, wincing in horror. Darius was tied to a set of wooden beams; his body was scored and bloody. God only knew what he'd endured. The blood she'd glimpsed on the floor was like something out of a horror flick.

A combination of anger and protective instincts she'd never believed possible surfaced. Darius's torso was horribly pale. The intense pain he suffered was almost palpable and her heart broke for him. Even when they'd been at each other's throats, she'd have never wished this kind of anguish on the man. Now, after understanding him so much better and sharing a moment of ultimate connection during that magnificent, universe-shattering kiss, she wanted to kill anyone and everyone who'd dared hurt him. All she could think about was getting to him and removing him from the source of his pain.

Forgetting caution, fear, or strategy, she rounded the corner firing her weapon in straight volleys, toward anything
not
tied to blood-covered beams.

Three vamphieres and an elderly, human-looking man in a long blue robe were so shocked that they barely had time to react.

Two vamphieres hesitated too long. Surprise at her appearance was written on their faces as they went down. She didn't hesitate in unloading on them with all she had.

According to Barst, she had enough firepower to take down fifty men, but who knew if a blood-sucking creature of legend might not just take it on the chin and get up. For that reason, she felt no remorse as she kept aiming and firing.

• • •

Like some avenging, wraithlike entity from a dream, Darius watched her enter the room. His savior moved like a graceful feline; righteous fury etched itself into her beautiful features as she dropped each of his tormentors, one after the other. And though one vamphiere got off several volleys, she ducked and dodged with such athletic elegance that the man repeatedly missed his target and eventually joined his comrades on the wooden floor.

Darius couldn't remember seeing anything so lethally lovely. Pain mingled with some other emotion too raw to name. Then anger flooded him. His fists clenched.

She has no business being off the ship.

Surely, Laurel must have plotted this scheme. Barst and Gemma wouldn't endanger the life of an unqualified civilian and risk their careers or his crew's safety by disobeying orders.

For a moment longer, he fought off pain and actually won.

With the torturers lying on the floor, either unconscious from stun mode or dead from a more lethal setting, Laurel moved swiftly. She grabbed a knife from the belt of one of the vamphieres and began cutting his ropes.

“What are you doing here?” Darius croaked as the blood in his mouth threatened to choke off words entirely.

“I think it's called saving your ass, and you can thank me later. The weapon fire made a lot of noise. I don't think we'll be alone very long.”

His bindings fell away even as he took several staggering steps forward and gasped. His slightest movement drove the creatures within his body deeper.

“Are you good to fight?” she quickly asked.

“Yes. We n-need to move,” he rasped out.

“Okay. Here's another weapon,” she told him as she pulled a backup laser pistol from one boot. “Having never fired one of the damned things, I really didn't want to use both at the same time. My left-hand aim isn't that great.” She shrugged as her gaze wandered over his bleeding chest. “Anyway … I didn't need it.” She took several steps toward him and haltingly put out one hand as if to help him. “Are you sure you can you move by yourself?”

Her words were fired as fast as her weapon. He took a deep breath, along with the laser pistol she offered, and willed himself to stay upright, all of which was done while ignoring the arm she offered for support. “I don't know how you got here … I'll address somebody's failure to follow orders later. Right now we have to make our way upstairs. While they thought I was unconscious, I overheard a vamphiere saying that's where the hostages are being held.”

Laurel quickly moved to each of the downed foes. “I-I think these bastards are dead … if
not
breathing
passes for it in this part of the universe,” she quipped.

“We need to move,” he harshly reiterated. “Their friends will have heard the laser fire, just as you—”

“Don't worry, Darius. There's a plan in place!” Laurel countered as she moved to the door and carefully checked the hallway.

Approaching voices made her pull back, into the room.

“What
plan
?” Darius demanded. “We'll be trapped here—”

“We're supposed to get as many of these vampire-things to follow us as we can … assuming you can move.”

“I can hold my own!” he growled.

“Then follow me.”

Angered by her pompous behavior while simultaneously being fearful for her safety, he stuffed down any comments along with the pain, and did as she commanded. If they survived, he'd deal with her later.

As a team, they bolted out the door and ran down the hallway in the opposite direction from approaching guards. Unfortunately, their forward momentum toward freedom was short lived. Another group of angry voices sounded from the opposite direction.

Laurel turned to him. A look of chagrin was pasted on her face. “Okay … I got us this far. You're up, spaceman!”

He stared at her, wanting to shake her and then pull her into his embrace. A quick glance showed him the only exit available—a large, stained-glass window to their left.

“This time you follow
me
,” he said as he grabbed her free hand. “We go through that.”

“
Are you crazy
?”

“Debate it later … close your eyes!”

He leaned forward and put all his remaining strength into charging through the window. Before he leapt, he made sure his grasp was firm on the pistol she'd provided, and her wrist.

The once-lovely artisan glasswork, mounted in a window several times taller than most men, shattered around them as he pulled them through. The resulting jolt his body took while landing on the well-manicured lawn of an Arjus garden was almost more than he could stand. But he managed to push himself upright as he glanced to his left where Laurel landed beside him. She was also standing. Shattered glass flew from her hair as she shook it free.

In that moment, even through pain that was almost unendurable, he noted the courageous look on her face and the absolute, resolute determination to stay alive at all costs. In her, he found strength and renewed will to live.

“If you wanted them to follow us, you've got your wish,” he told her as he glanced backward in time to see vamphiere guards athletically bounding through the hole they'd made in what was probably one of Char's prized artistic possessions.

He re-gripped her free hand and ran.

Together, they bolted into the safety of nearby woods. Lasers burst in the air around them as they moved, ducked, and outdistanced their pursuers. The vamphieres apparently had second thoughts about following. Though they could move faster and with greater agility, they were nothing without their leader. They'd consult Garron before taking action. None of them wanted to die this day, and the cowards now faced foes armed with weapons that
would
destroy them.

As he moved and felt the effects of the parasites within his body, he prayed their luck held. Eventually, the adrenaline in his body ran out. The creatures were doing their job and he could fight them no more. Tall trees, plants, shrubs, and vines sheltered their escape. His beautiful, brave companion might at least have a chance to get to safety.

When a small clearing no larger than the space of a personal transport shuttle came into view, he stopped and sank to his knees. There was no further escape for him. He'd moved his last. Only the thought of outwitting his foes and seeing her to safety after having so brilliantly rescued him had kept him on his feet so long. But no longer.