But the Jell-O moat only drew her attention for a moment. In front of them, across the nearest channel, was a mountainous creature which seemed to be made entirely of brownish-black slime. It had wide yellow eyes as big as softballs and it was lying reclined on some kind of couch while the blue blobby customs agent who had brought them there floated nearby.
This must be the Controller.
As Harper watched, it opened a yawning, toothless mouth, and something black and slimy wiggled out, like a snake or a worm seeking blindly for prey. The thing came to a blunt point and dripped slime on the shiny black tiles as it extended easily nine feet from the Controller’s lipless maw.
It’s tongue—that’s what touched me! What slimed me!
Disgust so deep it nearly nauseated her twisted her stomach into a fist. For a moment Harper honestly thought she might be sick.
“Ugh,” she gasped again, her hand curling into a fist inside Shad’s. “What is it?”
“The Controller is the supreme being—the keeper of the gateway from the space port to the rest of Juno,” burbled the blue blob. “If you wish to enter the city and partake of the many delights our planet has to offer, you must pay his tax.”
“Verlex number nine-seventeen speaks the truth,” the Controller snarled in his thick, muddy voice. “And my tax must be paid now!”
Suddenly Harper felt something at her back. Turning her head, she saw that a thick pole, the same color and consistency of the shiny black tiles beneath their feet, was shooting up behind her. Before she could exclaim, the top of it had reached the vaulted ceiling overhead and small, shiny black tendrils began to grow from the pole’s sides. These curled like vines around her wrists and ankles. Her hand was torn from Shad’s grip and her arms were fixed above her head in an unbreakable grip. At the same time, her legs were dragged apart and more of the shiny black vines started lifting her dress.
She gasped as her dress and the t-shirt she wore were pulled up to her chin, leaving her naked and struggling, pinned to the cold black pole behind her. Her thighs were spread wide and since she had no bra or panties on, everything was completely on display.
“Now, my dear,” the Controller burbled in his slime-choked voice. “Simply submit to my tasting for a few moments and the two of you can go and explore the city. I assure you, I will bring you only pleasure when I part your nether lips with my tongue and stroke inside you.”
“The hell you will!” Harper shouted, fear and rage lending strength to her voice. “Keep away from me, you bastard! I don’t want any part of you anywhere near me!”
Her protests did no good. The Controller only gave her a wide, yawning grin and the horribly long, slimy tongue slid out of his mouth again. Black and dripping with unspeakable ooze, it headed right for her.
“No!” All this time Shad had been trying to free her. But though his muscles bulged, he was unable to break any of the shiny black vines holding her to the pole. To Harper, they felt like some kind of solid, living metal.
She felt something slimy against her leg and shrieked breathlessly. Looking down, she saw that the blunt, dripping tip of the Controller’s tongue was sliding up her inner thigh.
“Seven Hells!” Shad growled. He abandoned his quest to free her and reached down to seize the dripping tongue instead, no doubt meaning to yank it away from her.
But the moment his fingers made contact, there was a sizzling sound and he shouted and jerked away. There were red marks on his hand which looked like they’d been made by a hot iron where he’d touched the slimy thing.
“You see?” The Controller sounded smug, though how he could talk, let alone sound like a smug asshole with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, was beyond Harper. “My taste-touch gives pleasure to those whom I deem worthy…and pain to those who deserve it. Now step back, Kindred, and allow me to pleasure your female. In just a moment it will all be over—your tax will be paid and you can leave.”
Harper felt sick with disgust. Was this her fate? To be tongue-raped by this slimy bastard while she was tied to the black metal pole, spread-eagle and helpless?
“No!” she shouted. “No!”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Shad faced her and pressed himself against her, his broad chest crushing her bare breasts as he wrapped his arms around the pole she was pinned to. One leather-clad knee came between her thighs, pressing hard against her open pussy and blocking the slimy tongue from licking her exposed sex.
“Ah!” Harper gasped at the unexpected contact. It was uncomfortable but she had to admit it was about a thousand times better than letting the oily tongue of the Controller penetrate her.
“Be still,” Shad growled, looking down at her, his opalescent eyes burning. “I won’t let him taste you—I swear it, Harper. Trust me.”
“I…I just…” She shivered and shifted her hips, but that increased the pressure of his knee against her clit, shooting a bolt of unwelcome pleasure through her entire body.
“Be still,” he repeated and there was a look of grim determination on his face.
There was an angry hiss and Harper looked over the big Kindred’s broad shoulder to see that the Controller’s huge eyes, formerly yellow, were now shaded an angry reddish-orange.
“You will regret this, Kindred,” he declared. “One of you must pay the tax and if it is you, I swear it will be a tax of pain and not pleasure.”
“Do your worst,” Shad growled over his shoulder. “I don’t fear you.”
“You should!”
The tongue whipped out suddenly, landing like a lash across the big Kindred’s broad back.
Shad grunted and stiffened and Harper saw a wisp of smoke rising from the place where the tongue had struck across his shoulders. The tongue lashed out again…and then again… Shad’s black t-shirt was in the way but that didn’t seem to matter. The acidic slime of the Controller’s tongue was burning its way through the fabric to reach the vulnerable flesh below, making him jerk with each blow, though he never left his post.
“Shad!” Harper exclaimed when she realized what was happening. “Oh, no—oh no, no, no!”
“I’m…fine.” Shad seemed to force the words out. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were slitted in pain but he bore the beating stoically, though beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.
For me—he’s doing this for me, Harper realized. He’s taking the pain so I don’t have to let this slimy bastard lick me all over.
She was simultaneously grateful and horrified. She wasn’t tall enough to look down his back and see what the damage was, but from the rising wisps of smoke and the scent of burning flesh, she had a sinking feeling it was going to be extensive.
“Shad,” she whispered. “Shad, please…I don’t…don’t want you getting hurt like this for me.”
“Fine,” he ground out. “I said…I’m fine. Over…in a…minute.”
Harper hoped so. As big and strong as he was, she wasn’t sure how much of this he could take. For a moment his eyes rolled up in his head and then he shook himself, making a visible effort to return to consciousness and remain at his post. God, this was horrible!
“Stop it!” she shouted over the big Kindred’s shoulder. “Stop it, you slimy bastard—you said your tax was pain, not death. You’ll kill him if you keep this up. Stop!”
She found that she was crying but she didn’t know when she had started. How had the situation gotten so desperate so quickly? Was this another symptom of the past refusing to be changed? If either of them died the time-loop would reset, at least according to Shad. Was that about to happen now? But this was their last chance—he’d said so. Was this going to be the end of their effort to change history right here and now?
But at last the Controller seemed to get tired of his literal tongue lashing. With a snap, he rolled the long, slimy tongue back into his mouth and the beating ceased.
Shad gave a groan of relief and sagged against her.
“Gods,” Harper heard him mutter. “Gods.”
&nb
sp; “Your tax is paid.” The Controller didn’t sound very happy about it but at least the living metal vines which bound Harper’s arms and legs relaxed their grip on her. They let her go just in time for her to catch Shad, who was sagging to his knees.
He was too heavy for her to hold up. Quickly, she lowered him to the floor, pulled down her dress, and bent to examine his back. What she saw made her bite her lip to keep from cursing or crying out.
The black t-shirt was in shreds and tatters, singed almost completely away as though by a hot branding iron. The skin of Shad’s back was a mass of criss- crossing burns and welts that looked like they’d been made by a fiery whip. There was no blood but in places his flesh had been burned nearly to the bone—the wounds cauterized by the terrible heat.
Harper stared at him in pity and horror. Why would he endure this for her? When he didn’t even like her? If the Controller had licked her instead of Shad, it would have been disgusting and she would have felt violated but she wouldn’t have come out of the experience half-dead with third degree burns.
I shouldn’t have let him do this for me, she thought, filled with remorse. Shouldn’t have let him sacrifice himself like this.
Guilt and fury filled her and she glared at the evil being who had inflicted such pain on the big Kindred.
“Hey, asshole!” she shouted at the Controller, who was still reclining on his couch, looking smug. “You can’t just do this—can’t just scar people like this for life! What gives you the right to permanently damage him for your fucking tax?”
She was really angry—she usually tried not to drop the F-bomb. Her mom hated it. But it slipped out when she was pissed off and right now Harper felt like she would happily strangle the slimy bastard with his own disgusting tongue if she got a chance.
“Who said anything about permanent damage? I only tasted his pain.” The Controller ran out his oily black tongue and licked his lipless mouth, as though to capture the last faint traces of Shad’s agony.
“Look at him!” Harper exclaimed. “He’s out cold! You gave him freaking third-degree burns all over his back, you big slimy asshole!”
The Controller looked bored. “The healing t’xl gel in the channels around you will take care of any damage. Use it if you wish but hurry—I have others waiting to pay the tax.”
“Healing what gel?” Harper demanded.
“Here.” The blue blob Customs Agent the Controller had called Verlex number nine-seventeen, had floated silently to one side during the whipping. Now it flew past her and hovered over the bright-green Jell-O looking stuff which flowed in the square moat that surrounded them.
Harper made certain Shad was still breathing and then went over to the edge of the moat.
“You want me to put that stuff on his back?” she asked, looking down at the thick, twitching gel.
“If you wish him to heal.” If blobs could shrug, this one did, only it was more of a ripple which ran through his blue, blobby body. Clearly it didn’t matter to him if Shad was healed or not.
Of course he doesn’t care. He’s not a Customs Agent or a guard—he’s just a pimp who goes out and finds people he thinks the Controller will like to pay his fucking tax.
Well, it mattered a hell of a lot to Harper. It was on her account that Shad had been so horribly wounded in the first place. Carefully she drew back the arm of the too-large leather jacket, which she was still wearing, and dipped her hand into the bright green gel.
The sensation wasn’t at all what she expected. Rather than being slimy and wet, like the Controller’s tongue, the green Jell-O stuff felt powdery and dry in the palm of her hand. It came away cleanly without making drips or drops and she carried it carefully over to where Shad lay sprawled, face down on the floor.
“Just…put it on his back?” she asked, talking to the blue blob rather than the Controller. She had no more to say to that sadistic dick.
“Yes,” Verlex number nine-seventeen said with another rippling shrug.
“Will it hurt? Will it sting?” Harper asked anxiously. She didn’t want to give Shad even more pain on top of the awful agony the big Kindred had already experienced.
“Doesn’t matter… if it does.” The deep, hoarse voice surprised her. She looked down and saw that he was conscious, his jaw gritted with pain.
“Shad?” she asked uncertainly.
“Just put it on,” he instructed. “Can’t hurt…worse than it already does.”
Harper would have liked to dip a finger in the gel and try a little out first but when she tried, she found it was impossible. The bright green glob in her hand seemed determined to stay together.
With a sigh, she decided there was nothing else she could do but just put it on, as Shad had requested. Wincing in sympathy for his pain, she lowered her hand and tipped the contents gently onto the center of his broad back.
She was prepared to spread it gently over his back with the tips of her fingers but she didn’t have to. The green gel at once began spreading over Shad’s wounded and charred flesh of its own volition, covering every area which had been hurt or burned.
Looks like bright green jelly being spread by an invisible knife, Harper thought, half-hysterically. The thought made her want to laugh but when she opened her mouth, a sob came out instead. She clamped her lips closed, not wanting to hear that sound come out of herself again.
Shad gave a low groan but when she looked at him anxiously, she saw it was a groan of relief, not more pain. To her surprise, the green gel seemed to be healing him instantly. The charred, burned lines on his back began to knit together until the flesh was smooth except for a few white lines that looked like years-old scars.
At last the green gel finished its job. Then, as easily as it had spread itself out, it gathered itself into a ball and rolled off Shad’s broad back. Harper watched in surprise as it rolled across the black, shiny surface of the floor and plopped back into the moat that surrounded them. Apparently it felt its job was done and, looking at Shad’s now-healed back, she had to admit it was right.
“Ahh…” The big Kindred sat up, flexing his shoulders experimentally.
“Better?” Harper asked anxiously. “It certainly looks better. Although I’m afraid you’re going to have scars.”
“Feels better too. And I don’t care about scars.” He nodded and got to his feet. “Ready to go?”
“What? Just like that?” Harper was still angry—spoiling for revenge. She was ready to jump the green moat and kick the Controller in his balls—if she could find them under all that slime, that was.
Shad seemed to understand her feelings because he shook his head.
“Nothing we can do—we had to pay the tax,” he said shortly. “If you try to get revenge, he’ll only do something worse.”
Harper could hardly imagine anything worse than the beating slash burning she’d just witnessed but at last, reluctantly, she nodded.
“All right. How do we get out of here?”
“This way. All who pay the tax are given free passage out of the space port.” Verlex number nine-seventeen floated towards them and once more they were enveloped in transparent blue bubbles.
Here we go again, Harper thought. She wondered where they would end up next and hoped it wouldn’t be as awful as what they’d just been through. Although she had only had to watch it—Shad was the one who had actually borne the pain.
Why had he done it? Why had he taken her pain when he disliked her so much he only touched her when it was absolutely necessary and he seemed to have almost nothing to say to her? Letting the Controller lick her wouldn’t have reset the time-loop so it couldn’t have affected their mission. So why would he bother?
Harper still had no answers and considering how closed-mouth the big Kindred was, she didn’t know if she would ever get them.
Chapter Five
The bubbles popped more delicately this time, depositing them gently on their feet at the mouth of the space port, right by the huge arching gate of Twilah, Juno�
�s capital city. Shad breathed a sigh of relief as he looked around. Yes, this was just as he had seen it in his fathers’ memories.
Deep and Lock, Shad’s Twin Kindred fathers, had been finder/seekers who had been able to project their minds into the astral plane and travel in spirit to many more places than they had traveled in body. At their death, their memories had passed to Shad, because he had been the first born of his brothers.
He had slipped out of the birth canal only a few moments before War, who was quickly followed by Peace. But the timing was enough that when the Mother Ship blew, he was immediately inundated with thousands upon thousands of memories, recollections, and visions of foreign, far off planets and places he had never seen with his own eyes. It had taken him months to process them all, complicated by the fact that he had been grieving deeply for the loss of all three of his parents at the time.
Shad drew on these memories now, using them to orient himself as he looked around the busy, crowded entrance to the city.
“Shad? Where are we? Where are we going now?” Harper asked. Apparently she was tired of waiting for him to speak.
He glanced at her, his heart swelling as he remembered the tears on her cheeks—tears she’d shed for him. Shielding her honor was the most natural thing in the world for him— as it would be for any Kindred protecting the woman he loved. But Harper had taken it to heart, crying out for him in a way he was unable to cry for himself.
There was uncertainty in her jade green eyes now—eyes he’d seen in his dreams since he was a young boy. Gods, how he wished he could take her in his arms and reassure her—wished he could kiss away the sorrow and doubt on her lovely face and tell her how he really felt about her.
But he’d been down that road and had suffered the pain and loss it brought in the end. Even if they succeeded this time in reaching the end of the loop, he would still lose her, he reminded himself. The past would be changed and the path they had taken to change it would be erased from existence—completely eradicated from everyone’s mind but his own. He had the looper which meant he alone would know what had taken place. To Harper, he would be just another Kindred…another stranger…
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