Ransom X

  *****

  Wagner heard a shrill whistle. The dogs appeared to judge the quality of the command before backing off. They were so close to unprotected flesh, it took a second sharp, insistent pipe before they backed down. The noise of their frantic chase had drawn the proprietor of the compound out into the night. A tall, lean specter appeared in the doorway, looking less like a man than a parchment-skinned walking cadaver. There was unbridled delight in his eyes, like he’d just come from the most satisfying moments of his ugly life.

  “Ladies?”

  Wagner shuddered. His tone was deadly sweet and incendiary, like a wisp of fairground cotton candy soaked in kerosene. She looked up and saw the flashpoint immediately, gleaming in the monstrous recessed eyes of Blade. There was something about the light entering behind Wagner that made a mosaic of colors play across his skin.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure, Darci? And you brought a friend.” Wagner’s eyes drifted from him to measure the distance between the door and where she lay. It wasn’t enough. Wagner had never seen the man before, and he’d never seen her. She might be able to explain her presence as part of Darci’s strange migration.

  Headlights flashed across the silhouette of Blade in the door, lighting up the side of his face for a moment. He stiffened up looking strangely uneasy for a moment. His voice remained calm, “The boys are back from the bar, what good timing.”

  Blade knew that the approaching rumble was not the sound of motorcycle engines. He did a quick calculation, and then let go of the door.

  Wagner heard the door creak as it eased back to a close rusty springs. The light falling across the dirty interior narrowed until only needles around the improperly hung door stretched across the interior. Blade’s voice called to her from the darkness, “Agent?”

  Wagner was sure that she’d look up to lock eyes with pure evil, but to her surprise, he was gone. There was a slap of wood against the doorframe. It made Darci shudder beneath her, and drew Wagner’s attention to the irregular breathing of the girl. She was petrified. Wagner reached down to her ankle holster and then felt the cold clammy slap of a hand that covered her own like a tourniquet. A whisper entered her ear flicking like the tongue of a snake.

  “Let’s not take out our toys - yet.” There was urgency in his voice now. It wasn’t like the playful address at his entrance, “We don’t have time to play.” Wagner whipped her head around. There was only blackness staring back at her but she could smell his stale breath hovering at an intimate distance in front of her face.

  Darci began heaving, great convulsion-like dry sobs until the contents of her stomach surfaced. It was the only time in Wagner’s life that the smell of bile was a welcome change in the atmosphere. Vomit is not always the gatekeeper for tears, but for Darci it was like her entire body remembered Blade and protested in its own way.

  “You look delicious – but you smell surprised, agent. Guns and girls in my chapel can only mean one thing. You followed the little red riding slut back to grandmother’s house.” Wagner’s eyes adjusted slightly and she recognized the geometric pattern of the primary illumination in the room. Silver moonlight filtered through a stained glass representation of the story of Cain. It was just enough light to make out the form of his attacker, more than enough to strike back.

  Her weapon was pinned down, but Wagner felt her body surge preparing a response to Blade’s hospitality. Darci must have known, felt her body change; she choked from the darkness, “Don’t do it.”

  But it was too late to change anything but the direction of the blow, palm smashing into the bridge of Blade’s nose.

  A normal man would have been incapacitated for several seconds, giving Wagner the chance to draw, but somehow Blade held onto Wagner’s hand. Wagner’s knee shot up, sunk deeply into the gaunt man’s stomach, pushing organs up against the spine before retreating. That would certainly –

  But before she could complete the thought, she felt the holster ripped from her ankle tearing the cuff of her pants. It was now in Blade’s hand, Wagner locked eyes expecting some sign of pain or shock. Instead, she found something equivalent to an orgasm in Blade’s world, and though it stemmed from pure evil, it had its roots in pure bliss.

  Darci’s voice cut the silence just before Wagner received a slap that burst blood vessels on the inside of her mouth.

  “It’s how he always wins. Pain gives him an advantage.” SMACK, her words were punctuated with a white flash.

  The dogs bayed and howled, they were keen to see the violence. Teeth, impossibly white, gleamed from lips curled in sinister snarls. The home crowd atmosphere distracted Wagner from raising her guard more quickly, at least that’s what she thought. In truth, there was almost no response that was quick enough to defend oneself from Blade. Another blow, again open handed and ferocious after a blazing fast recovery from the first. Wagner’s skin stung and she imagined the blood flooding her face looking for a way out, and finding none, permeating all of the interstitial spaces. She felt the clamp of a handcuff around her wrist and then her arm pulled like a rubber band until it met Darci’s left hand. They were cuffed in a tight embrace.

  Blade took Wagner’s second set of cuffs and pulled Darci’s right hand over Wagner’s shoulder reaching down through her crotch and meeting her left hand. Effectively both ladies ended up like a ball of yarn, the chain dug into humiliating areas leading to the discomfort of a chain link wedgie. She’d only known Blade for two minutes and he’d already degraded her. Wagner began to empathize with the bile that Darci extruded, realizing its physical presence came from a deeper understanding of the man who stood over them.

  It was the kind of mental understanding she never wanted to have. Blade tugged at the restraints. Wagner imagined that it was as much for the pleasure of seeing both women flinch as to make certain that there was no way of escaping.

  Wagner watched his every move, probing his physical weaknesses was imperative, and she made a mental list, not knowing when or if she’d ever use the information. One thing was clear, Blade was fast, and took advantage of every weakness instantly. The strength that it took to rip the leather straps of her holster off her leg required the kind of grip that a shop vice aspired to. Anger was a gateway to a violent ecstasy just below the surface.

  She heard the creaky springs complain as they stretched open and light from the outside flooded inside. Darci’s face was white as a sheet, and the dim yellow of the lamplight, mixed with the silver blue of the moon flickered like an old movie playing over a textured stretched canvas. Except the scratches were real, and the flicker Wagner imagined was Darci’s life force so delicate that it could be snuffed out with the flip of a switch. Wagner felt pity for her; even though she hardly had the luxury or distance of sympathy, it still welled for this young lost girl. She’d come back all this way, just to see if hell was how she left it.

  Blade looked around outside for a moment, then thundered back through the door. He dragged them roughly onto a nearby battered aluminum sled, and pulled them out the door like some kind of trophy kill he needed to get home while the meat was still fresh. He left the door open and called the dogs back to their patrol.