A moment's hesitation as the individual at the other end paused to consider Yusef's words. "One minute to zip your pants and wipe your goddamned hands, Yusef, we have no time for games!"
Val smiled, nodded.
"Yes, one minute! Oh gods, so good!"
Val frowned, not thinking the latter necessary, but what the hell.
"Wipe your hands well, you sick puppy."
In those frantic seconds Val kept his eye on Yusef trembling on the ground as Val backdoored into his stick as the colonel had instructed, grabbing the raw data as a series of files and e-mailing away as fast as he could.
"Times up, Yusef," said a voice now void of all warmth.
Val smiled. "Tell him it's dirty. You need to clean your tracks, or it's jail time."
Sobbing with humiliation, Yusef did just that.
No response save a sudden hard slam to the door, the chair jolting forward a good two inches.
Val hissed. Several files were still uploading. No time.
A crack as the door juttered forward another few inches, the chair leaving ugly black marks on the floor.
"Crawl forward, hands behind your head," Val ordered, pointing his gun at a trembling Yusef who did just that, assuring Val had all his targets in easy range at a narrow angle, minimizing the chances any could rush him.
The voices outside increased in intensity, a feminine one speaking a guttural dialect silencing them all.
Before speaking in a voice that chilled Val to the quick.
"Valor Hunter, is that you in there? Doing naughty things with one of my servants?"
Val swallowed, but did not answer.
Strange tinkling laughter suddenly echoed through the room, a background susurration as she spoke on. "Dear Valor, I do believe we got off on the wrong foot. I think you will find Endless to be absolutely captivating. Come, my fallen soldier. It is time for you to embrace the singular joy of giving in to the dark rapture waiting for you. For all of you."
Val hissed, horror warring with fury as he felt shadowy fingers slowly crawling inside his mind.
The door tore open with a crash, Val's hand slamming down upon the keyboard as his off-hand pointed trembling gun at the scene before him.
Yusef, upon the ground, begging and pleading for his life. A ferocious-looking bear of a man, heaving, the door having crashed open to his powerful blows, wearing a suit like the others, with tufts of hair sprouting from wrist sleeves and neckline, his glaring face home to dead grey eyes staring at Val with a killer's gaze. He was followed by another henchman holding a desert eagle in a confident grip.
Solena Petrova of the platinum blond curls and sleek, powerful frame was next to enter, smiling at Val's shaking hand, completely unafraid.
Val then held the pistol with both hands, his aim suddenly steady as a rock.
He smiled and breathed deep, a warrior of battle once more. No fear, no horror, no regret for the man who had died, choking and gasping to Val's still throbbing knuckles just a handful of minutes ago. His mind was clear, and he was suddenly back where he belonged. The screams of men dying around him, so many by his own two hands, and death a hungry specter always on his shoulder. Grinning his mad rictus of a smile, an echo of Val's own, one and the same.
Solena's confident grin turned into a snarl. "Put the gun down, worm."
Shadowy fingers of doubt and despair slithered into Val's brain.
He could feel the horror of Solena's will crawling through his mind, nightmare compulsion seeking to control him like a puppet, a seductive sleep-like summons he almost succumbed to, slipping away in a dark, yawning chasm.
Jolted awake by visions of himself screaming and shitting his pants, covered in the blood of his comrades. Unspeakable horrors he had come to terms with long ago, laughing in darkest glee, pulling his trigger over and over. The horrors of nightmare and shadow. Until he became one with the shadows, one with his own darkness, his foes sensing him not at all as he stalked their laughing forms through the moonless night. His aim had been horrid, for all that his foes had been unnerved by shots fired out of the inky darkness. He had then learned to turn furious glee to icy death, aim stilling, breath slowing, squeezing the trigger of his gun like the darkest of lovers, exhilarating in the crack of hammer coming down, the gun kicking, bullets flying where he willed it that awful night, just as it did now.
The hairy beast of a foot soldier closing in on him blinked, eyes widening, futilely raising a hand to feel for the top of his skull suddenly gone in a spray of blood and brain, before collapsing in death.
Solena's eye widened, fear touching for the first time her brilliant eyes. "No. There is no way you could know Shadowmind! You are weak. Untrained. Ripe chattel fit for our consumption and nothing more!"
But Val was no longer listening, having figured out how to tune out the dark murmurs of Solena's awful slithering laughter, echoing still. For whispers of madness could not harm shadow, could not harm the absence of anything, thoughts carefully blank. He was simply embracing the moment, and only the moment. When his hand moved as if of its own accord, lining up with the second henchman gazing down at his friend with a dark curse before aiming his desert eagle at him, Val felt the gun kick in his hand as if a sentient thing. He felt Death's black fury encase him in bitterest armor as the second mercenary collapsed in a spray of blood, both hands clawing at his throat as the ceiling directly above him was flash painted arterial red.
Solena gasped, stumbling back as crimson droplets spattered her exquisite features.
"Freeze, or I shoot you dead." Words dark as oblivion slipped from Val's lips, his eyes refusing to meet her own.
"How dare you threaten me!" Solena hissed, beautiful face twisting into an ugly snarl. "Drop your vile weapon and kneel, worm!"
Val groaned as a dark wave of horror and despair washed over him, hideous waves of guilt and sorrow roaring through him in a whirlwind of regret and self-loathing. He sobbed as the icy shell of cold resolve he hid his soul within began to crack and bleed, before the searing pain of scarred flesh tearing at the sudden abuse as he fell to his knees jolted him out of that hideous despair.
Val cried out, tears streaming down his face even as bitter resolve settled about him like blackest armor once more, gazing at his enemies with a fury unlike anything he had known before.
These monsters were the reason why Julia was missing, all her sweet dreams and innocence perhaps already replaced by hideous shame and horror. Val was no stranger to war-torn nations. He knew what happened to girls when the veneer of civility, innocence, and hope was stripped away from families and cultures entire.
Something in his eyes, perhaps. Solena gasped, stumbling back as Val curled his lips, his gun barrel cracking with a sharp retort only feet away from the imperious woman. Solena blinked in surprise as Yusef screamed, blood splashing his face as his right hand exploded in blood and bone.
And the gun he had been slyly reaching for was now forever out of his reach.
Yuself's piteous wails were an awful cacophony that further served to drown out the subtle susurrations of Solena's disembodied dark laughter, a sentient specter washing over them still.
"You actually shot him!" Solena's eyes widened with disbelief. "Who do you really serve, maggot? To which House have you sworn fealty? Which Highlord do you call master? There is no way you could resist me, were you of mundus alone!"
No place for recriminations or regret. These monsters were preparing to kidnap thirty US citizens under flimsiest pretext. It didn't matter Val's limitations, or the charges that would soon leave him in jail for life as angry functionaries sought for the most convenient scapegoat, or how he would rot in his cell for years to come.
Right now he was death, and he would see this through.
He reached for his cell phone and hit record. "I have proof of your intentions to trap thirty citizens in indentured servitude under false pretext. Yusef made it clear they were destined for Uzbekistan, a nation free of any US extradition treaty. This
isn't the first time you've used this ruse, is it, Solena? You and your shadow companies, carefully profiling and herding lonely gamers with no family ties to speak of, no one to come asking for them, to fight for them, during the time it takes you to hustle all of your victims overseas, with these pathetic excuses for employment contracts the only shield you feel you need to kidnap a person who lacks strong family ties. But you misstepped, Solena Petrova, if that is even your real name. Not everyone you profiled is a loner. Some have families that miss their children very much indeed." His voice rang out like an accusation, even as he did his best to avoid her gaze like he would a serpent's bite.
"Where is Julia Petrovsky?"
She hissed and lurched back, delicate nostrils flaring.
"Ah, I see it rings a bell. One of your victims from your last roundup. Has she already been shipped out? Is Uzbekistan really her destination?" Heart hammering, he forced himself to say it, needing to see the reaction, this time locking gazes with her. "She's a beautiful girl. Innocent, sweet, a vision of grace that could melt the coldest man's heart. Tell me she's not destined for a brothel in Russia? Saudi Arabia? A rich patron looking for pristine flesh?"
For all that the blood roared in his ears, her growing smirk left him both relieved and more worried than ever.
"Is that what you think, chattel? That we would go to all this trouble for simple flesh? Fool! There are scores of worlds with desperate serfs and slaves beyond count to fulfill our every dark desire!" Her lips curled in a truly vicious smile. "So many soul-fried pieces of slag for a boar to spill his seed into, and their get unlikely to be any more illuminated than they! No, worm. Simple flesh for rutting is beneath our needs, our purpose." Sensual lips curled upwards into the most awful of smiles. "Julia Petrovsky. Yes, I remember her name, worm. She was one of the special ones, deserving of more than simply being put into a brain vat and shipped back. Would you like to see her?"
Val blinked into the sudden silence, Solena's offer registering only as he gazed at the monitor tilted at an angle that only he could see, his phone now streaming directly to the bluetooth compatible stick drive built for just such an operation as this, Yusef having unwittingly left open channels through their firewall, Val now streaming everything live to the horrified ears and eyes of Colonel Petrovsky presently looking back at Val, no doubt alerted the moment Val had started uploading and broadcasting through the firewall. The Colonel's tormented gaze spoke volumes, though he wisely said not a word.
Val found himself nodding his head, gaze once more on Solena. "I can see her?"
Sensual lips bubbled in laughter, discordant counterpoint to Yusef's awful moans as he writhed amongst the bodies of the men Val had shot dead, trembling with shock as he held his mangled hand, blood streaming from the grizzly mess that remained.
"Yes, Valor Hunter. You can see her. In fact, you can join her." Val was caught off guard when she dipped her head, as if in grudging approval of what he had done. "You have a strong mind indeed, Valor Hunter, and as much as you have proven yourself a thorn, you have proven yourself as well." She smirked. "I have been assured that your pathetic technologies are unable to penetrate the wards my men have placed in effect, men whose minds were free of all guile. So put down your toy gun, Val, and come with me."
Val swallowed, horrified and amazed by what he was hearing, discretely turning off the monitor so the colonel's face disappeared, for all that he still heard and saw everything Val showed with his phone. "Yes, I think, I think I will come with you. I am confused though, you said we are unable to penetrate your... wards?"
Solena gave a contemptuous sniff. "This pathetic excuse for technology. The only thing the physics of your realm is conducive to is spying. Spying on your neighbors, your friends, odd permutations of radiation echoing still with the remnants of your realm's creation, yes? It is free of the primal fields that allow for true technology, Valor, electromagnetism being the least of them. In fact, one could argue that you're hardly alive at all, your realm lacking the fields of existence that allow for true quantization of body and soul." Her laughter was taunting. "And that is why, for all that you can almost fathom your own creation, your entire civilization will still die with a whimper. Weak fools who can never savor true power, unable to harness the locked potentials and potencies of all the souls that came before."
Val blinked, getting the oddest tingle. "Are you seriously saying what I think you're saying?"
Solena's laughter was low, throaty. "Ah, at last I can peer into the desperate cracks of your mind. What you secretly yearn for. Hunger for. As do all those even the least bit worthy. Yes, Valor Hunter. In the primal realms where true civilizations flourish, the dreams of earlier societies are not lost. The will, the force, the fury, of all those who came before is more than the meaningless release of potential energy. The things you do, the wonders you create, the foes you kill matter! As you blossom in power, feeding upon the passions and dreams of those to fall before you, heightening your power as if you had made years' worth of growth in an instant!"
Val's throat was dry, his heart now hammering with wonder and horror.
"In other words, in your realm... you level up."
Her eyes twinkled with darkest mirth, her face now as soft and sensual as an angel's, platinum blond hair glowing as if caressed by golden shafts of light in a woodland glade. "Exactly, Val, and now that I know what you yearn for, what you desire, I don't think you will be so hard to control, after all."
She curled one elegantly filed fingernail the color of blood and smiled. "Come hither, child. For you are a ripe fruit that begs to be plucked, and I shall savor your juices like no other."
Without another word she turned on her shiny black boots and exited the room, Val doing nothing to stop her, following just behind, allowing the door to shut on the blood-spattered room still resonating with Yusef's desperate moans, as if leaving that chapter of his life behind for good.
7
As if in a daze, gun lowered, Val followed just behind the woman whose presence had magnified as she moved with the sensual grace of a goddess, and never had Val hungered for anyone as much as he did the lithe seductress before him, turning behind only occasionally to flash a teasing smile his way.
Strangely, none of the powerfully built mercenaries poorly disguised in suits sought to tackle him, for all that his gun was lowered and he clearly in a daze. He did not even protest when one man gently grabbed the handles behind him and began rolling him at a steady pace, not even blinking when the gun was removed from lax fingers.
Only his tricky left hand discretely held his phone, recording still, that thought carefully concealed in the deep dark shadows of his mind as he made the way back the way he came. All traces of the struggle by the back door were now gone without a trace.
Back into the cafeteria where they had made their pitch, there was no trace anyone had even been there that day. The tables were now completely bare, lacking even the burgundy tablecloths that had given the room a touch of elegance already cleared away. They moved forward without pause, a smiling Solena opening the double doors Val had seen all the other prospective testers funnel through like sheep to the slaughter.
A quiet part of Val's mind was terrified, even as so much of him smiled under Solena's spell. But he had allowed himself to embrace the seduction, knowing this was his best chance of discovering Julia's location. Besides, what if Solena's mad ramblings were more than just outrageous delusion or simple subterfuge? After all, what gamer wouldn't want to discover hidden worlds filled with magic and wonder? Perfect bait.
But what if it were somehow all true? Only someone like him, open-minded enough to accept the possibility of it, might have a chance of saving Julia.
Is it time to slip free?
Not yet.
Val found himself being led past empty chairs facing a film depicting a fantastic scene of fully mechanized troops springing from their carrier and vaulting upon a flower-strewn field that had become a massive field of battle, e
xchanging laser fire with hideous tentacled beasts before engaging in melee battles with titanic blades and force-shields as dragons soared above, like a clip from the wildest of adventure films, playing for an audience long gone.
Val said not a word on it as Solena led him deeper into her layer, and now Val heard the distinctive sound of medical equipment as a final door was opened.
Val squinted as bright blue light washed over him, Solena taking a deep, relieved breath, flexing her fingers and nodding, and somehow Val was certain she had just gotten stronger. She suddenly seemed more vibrant. More... real, somehow. As if the rest of them were mere NPCs in a universe that now starred her alone.
It was a chilling thought.
Val kept his mind utterly blank as Solena caught his gaze, favoring him with a predatory smile. She bent down, powerful fingers gently slipping through his hair as crimson lips caressed his ear. "Soon you will be mine, Valor Hunter. How sweet it will be, feasting upon the pleasures of your flesh, the sweet bounty of your soul. I will harness your Psions, and you give them to me unstintingly, feeling nothing but rapture in utter submission."
Val trembled and shivered at her touch, near swooning, unable to help himself as her haunting, hypnotic laughter washed over him.
"Ah, Val. It is true what they say. The most worthy prey always puts up the best fight. I am glad you chose to fight me, Val, so I may taste your strength, even now."
"Where is Julia?" he whispered, even as Solena's hands slowly unbuttoned his shirt, her hot lips touching, tasting his flesh, and he could sense her sharp arousal, for all that she had condemned simple pleasures of the flesh but minutes before.
She looked up at him, eyes dilated, a breathy chuckle sending fresh shivers down Val's spine. "I can taste how sweet your potential is, Val," she whispered, caressing his ear once more. "Perhaps I will find other uses for you than the potency of your mind. Uses I know you hunger for, even now." Her smile turned wicked. "But you will not find serving me to be an easy task, my prize. You shall writhe in torment even as you cry out in ecstasy. For what is pleasure without the sweet spice of pain?"
Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade Page 9