by Glen Frost
"My sisters, I am truly sorry for what you have gone through. My name is Anya. I too have been trafficked by this filth and his parasites. I was freed, and now I give you back your freedom too."
There were tears. The girls took their turns embracing Anya and thanking her. If any thought it odd how cold her skin was to the touch, none of them remarked upon it. Vasily Guskov lay on the floor and stared up at them, his expression a mixture of hatred and fear.
"Oh, do not worry Mr. Guskov," Anya smiled. "We have not forgotten about you. Sisters, my gift to you. He is all yours."
As one, the seven girls turned to face the prostrate old man. Until just moments before, he had been their tormentor: now, he was at their mercy...
...and they were all out of that.
Although weakened from days and in some cases weeks of under-nourishment, the girls were suddenly revitalized by the hate and righteous anger that they had been nursing for all that time. Two of them took him by the arms, hauling him to his feet. When he attempted to resist, Anya rabbit-punched him in the back of the head, knocking him halfway-insensible with the single blow. That seemed to render him far more docile and manageable.
Watching the girls going to town on Guskov reminded Anya of the old saying, Many hands make for light work. In no time at all, they had him tied securely to the same padded metal X that he had used to torture them all at some time during their stay.
Off came his shirt and vest. Pulling his pants and underwear down around his ankles, Marina exposed the old man's flabby ass to the open air. She turned toward Lyuba. "You were the one to suffer this limp-dicked bastard's indignities, Lyuba. Would you like to do the honors?"
Lyuba's face lit up when she realized exactly what her fellow prisoner meant. She walked across to the upended table and began to root around on the floor until she found just what she wanted: an enormous foot-long purple strap-on cock. Marina helped her to fit it around her waist. Once she was satisfied that it was secure, Lyuba guided the massive rounded tip between the old man's buttocks. He began to groan in protest, but Tatiana fixed that quite easily by inserting a dildo between his teeth and forcing it into his mouth with repeated taps from the heel of her hand. She stopped short of actually making him gag...for now.
Guskov sucked in air through his nostrils, fighting to breathe. From directly behind him, Lyuba placed a hand firmly on each of his shoulder blades and suddenly thrust forward with her hips. A muffled scream came from his throat as twelve solid inches of rubber were hammered straight through his anus, the tip ending up somewhere inside his colon. The pain was like nothing he had ever experienced in his life; the humiliation he felt only compounded the agony, which quickly worsened as Lyuba commenced enthusiastically fucking him from behind.
Another former captive attached a pair of clamps to his nipples, tightening them until they wept blood. Marina helped another apply a cock ring to the base his flaccid penis, then began to exert pressure slowly but surely, tightening it up until the withered old member was bright purple and engorged with blood.
"Keep tightening, my love," Marina said, offering the girl a supportive pat on the shoulder. "And if the thing should turn black and start to bleed...tighten it just a little more."
Vasily's eyes widened at that. He fought against his bonds, but the girls had fastened them securely. There was nothing left for him to do but endure this small measure of the horrors he had visited upon all seven of the girls who were now gleefully taking this opportunity to return the favor.
"I think we need to change things up a little," Lyuba said after one particularly vigorous thrust drew blood from the human trafficker's rectum. She pulled the strap-on cock partway out, taking considerable satisfaction in the fact that the distal two-thirds were slick with blood.
"Don't pull out! Not yet!" Anya took out the phone she had liberated from the dead Creep. She circled Vasily slowly and began to take photographs from all angles. "Smile, Vasily. This will be all over the Internet inside of an hour."
"Mmmmmmfff!"
Tatiana pulled his head up by the hair, turning it toward the camera. With the strap-on still buried halfway inside his ass, Lyuba flipped an almost cheerful thumbs-up. Anya made sure to capture the fact that he was being fucked by a woman, had a big rubber dick inside his mouth, and wore a cock ring, all in the same shot.
The nipple clamps were just a bonus.
"Okay," Anya said brightly, "I have more than enough pictures of our new porno star to share with the world. Please resume your activities."
Lyuba pulled out. Ditching the strap-on, she selected the same bullwhip that had been used on Marina earlier that day. "You don't have to do this," she whispered in Tatiana's ear, "but if you would like to pay him back in kind for what he made Vladimir do to you, then please feel free." She held out the bullwhip's handle invitingly.
Tatiana considered it for a moment; then, taking the whip firmly in her right hand, she lashed it across Guskov's back with considerably more enthusiasm than she had used on Marina. His back arched with every switch of the whip, desperately trying to evade the stinging bite. It was no use. Soon, Tatiana had worked herself up into a frenzy, channeling the countless hours of humiliation and abuse she had suffered at Guskov's hands into her own right arm.
When she finally could lift that arm no longer and fell back panting, the old man's back was nothing more than a bloody mess, the flesh cut to ribbons and in many places flayed open down to the bone.
Guskov sagged limply against the X-shaped frame. Unable to breathe adequately or compensate for a significant loss of blood, not to mention the after-effects of the Viagra that he taken earlier that morning to engage in what he liked to call 'a little sport-fucking,' the old man's heart finally succumbed to the strain and stopped beating. Years of atherosclerotic disease had narrowed his coronary arteries to the diameter of tiny drinking straws, and now it was time to pay the piper.
Even in death, the girls felt that Vasily Guskov hadn't yet settled the final bill. They released him from his restraints, letting the body flop ignominiously onto the hard floor. Then each took turns squatting over his corpse and emptied their bladder, one last fuck you to the most vile excuse for a human being that any of them had ever known.
The old saying is indeed quite correct, Anya found herself thinking as she watched the urine collect in the dead man's closed eye sockets: payback really is a bitch. They left the dick sticking out of his mouth. It seemed very apt.
Each of the girls selected an implement from the dead man's collection: a foot-long dildo; a claw hammer; a screwdriver; a baseball bat; a box cutter; a length of chain; a whip. As if some signal had been given that only they could hear, they fell upon Guskov's corpse in a frenzy, cutting, stabbing, flaying and furiously beating the dead flesh until it ruptured and split.
By the time it was all over, the old man's naked body looked like little more than mass of raw meat, oozing blood from a thousand places. From the looks upon their faces, Anya suspected that the experience was incredibly cathartic for them. All was silent apart from their panting breath.
It was only then that Anya realized something very significant: the house was completely quiet. The gunfire had stopped, which suggested that one side or the other had won. Personally, she was betting against Guskov's boys having come out on top.
As if on cue, a figure appeared at the top of the staircase. Although she felt as fresh as a daisy and ready to take on the world, something about the man's demeanor came across as non-confrontational.
"Hello down there," he called out loudly, descending the staircase one step at a time. "My name is Supervisory Agent Juan Padilla. I am hoping to find the young lady responsible for bringing Piotr Blinov to justice. Am I correct in thinking that she is down there?"
"Yes," Anya replied after a moment. "She is."
"Good. Because, young lady, do I have an offer for you..."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Once they were satisfied that a
ll of Guskov's men were dead and the residence was fully secured, the Agency assaulters had fanned out to form a perimeter at the base of the valley floor. Red smoke was popped, contrasting starkly with the falling snow. The two Black Hawks had been orbiting a safe distance away. Now they came in to land on the new LZ, setting down right in the middle of the smoke.
"Let me get this straight. You want me to work for you, a secret government agency, helping you hunt down...how did you put it...'bad guys?' " Anya brushed a wisp of stray hair from her eyes. She and Padilla stood in what had until half an hour ago been the living room and kitchen of Vasily Guskov's luxury McMansion. Now it was in utter ruins, the expensive wooden panelling reduced to firewood and the floor covered in broken glass.
"That's pretty much the size of it." The Supervisory Agent stood with his hands on his hips, watching her intently. Anya still had her mask in place, so what he saw was the facade of a beautiful woman without so much as a scratch to mar her beauty. "Tell me again why you came after Guskov. Was it for revenge?"
She shook her head. "No. At least, that was not the main reason. Yes, I wanted to hurt the man who enabled that pig Piotr to do what he did to me. But he is a trafficker of people. I have a daughter, Darya...she lives in Khabarovsk. My parents care for her, as best they can. I want to bring her to America, Agent Padilla. More than anything in all the world, I want this."
"You're a revenant," the SA reminded her, not pulling any punches. "How long do you think that you can play happy families before you have to go back to being truly dead?"
"So long as Piotr lives, I am safe. As for how long that will continue..." Anya shrugged. "I cannot say. I am not a doctor. But if being dead has taught me anything, it is to live each day to the fullest. Today, I have helped seven girls who were abused and exploited, just like me. It was a good day. Tomorrow, I could be burning in Hell. I accept that. So long as I am here, I will fight. Fight for Darya. Fight for our family. Fight for my mother and father."
"You like to fight?"
"Like has nothing to do with this. I am good at it. And I will keep on being good at it."
"Power such as yours is dangerous, unless it is given a purpose," Padilla said. "The United States government cannot permit you to simply go free and remain unsupervised, Anya. Surely you can see that?"
The revenant narrowed her eyes, shooting him a look that froze his blood. "You think that you can stop me? You and your toy soldiers?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. These men and women are damned good at what they do. In fact, they've taken down a revenant before. I won't deny that it would be bloody, but in the end, what are you going to do? Take on the whole federal government?"
"Perhaps," Anya replied stubbornly.
Padilla sighed. "Flying above us at 20,000 feet right now is a jet aircraft: an F-16 fighter, scrambled out of Buckley Air Force Base to support this mission. The pilot has been told that this is a raid on a terrorist cell of Islamic fundamentalists. If I or any of the ranking Agency personnel on the ground give the word, then that Falcon is going to drop a couple of five hundred pound bombs on this place and erase it from the face of the planet. I doubt even a revenant could survive that."
She stared at him in sullen silence.
"That's one choice," the SA continued. "The alternative would be this: come work for us. Uncle Sam has a lot of resources at his disposal, and The Agency has access to pretty much all of them. I give you my word that if you are willing to serve this country, not only will we work on getting you legitimate citizenship status, but we will also help you bring your daughter to come and live in the United States."
Anya could barely contain her delight. "You...you promise this? Truly?"
Holding up a hand, Padilla crossed two fingers. "That's the State Department and Homeland security," he said with a straight face, waggling his pointer finger. Then he wagged the middle finger. "And that one is us, at The Agency. See how we're on top?"
They both laughed. It had been one hell of a tense day, and the stress relief was sorely needed. Uncrossing his fingers, Padilla offered her his hand. After the tiniest of delays, she took it and shook.
"Do we have a deal?" he asked.
"We do." Anya leaned in close to whisper into his ear. "But I promise you this, Agent Padilla...if this turns out to be a trick and you are lying to me, then there is nowhere on Earth that you can hide from me. What I do to you will make what I did to Piotr look very mild indeed."
"Fair enough." Padilla put an arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward what was left of the front window frame. Below them at the foot of the hillside, the Black Hawk crew waited patiently, keeping the blades turning at low power. "Come on, let's get you on board."
She allowed the Supervisory Agent to lead her out into the cold and steer her toward the Black Hawk. "Are you coming too?" she asked, raising her voice to be heard above the whine of the UH-60's engines.
"Soon. I have a couple of things to take care of first." Yeah, like recovering that poor kid Alvers' body and figuring out what the hell I'm going to tell his wife. "I'll be taking the long way round."
"Huh?" Anya was confused.
"You're going by helo. I'm going by car. Either way, I'll see you at the hospital tonight. Now hop on in and buckle up..."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The snow was still coming down hard when Padilla pulled into the employee parking lot at Denver Health Medical Center. The roads were still shitty, even with four-wheel drive, so he'd kept the speed relatively low and made sure to get there safely.
A plain silver van that had been following him pulled into the neighboring parking spot. The SA nodded once at the driver in acknowledgment, before climbing out of his car and hitting the key fob button to lock it.
He checked his watch. 3:37a.m. The hour of the wolf...
Pulling his long black coat around him a little more tightly, Padilla made his way from the cover of the garage toward the shelter of the main hospital entrance. Of all the many governmental and state agency IDs that were at his disposal, he settled upon the false credentials of FBI Special Agent Jan Mura, who was supposedly based out of the Bureau's Denver field office.
One last loose end to be tied up...
Offering the night security guard sitting at the front desk a thin smile, Padilla flashed the impeccably forged ID and allowed the woman as much time as she wanted to examine it. Not that she'd have the faintest clue what to look for, he thought to himself. The FBI wasn't exactly a regular visitor here.
The guard, a middle-aged African-American woman whose name tag announced her as F. Rice, studied it for five seconds or so before handing it back with a much warmer smile than the one he'd offered her.
"Thank you, Special Agent Mura. May I ask who you are here to see, please?"
"Piotr Blinov."
Miss Rice (at least, he assumed that she was a Miss; there was no ring on her finger) pecked away at a keyboard, her eyes tracking rapidly from left to right across the computer screen. She gave Padilla the room number he was looking for. The SA thanked her and made his way past the security station to the elevators, ignoring the angry buzzing of the metal detector as it picked up on his piece. The security guard reached out and hit the button to silence the alarm. After all, FBI agents were supposed to be packing.
He rode the elevator up to the fourth floor in silence. They would be right behind him, he knew, and he could trust them to take care of the details. After all, they were Agency men and women: he trusted them implicitly.
The elevator shuddered to a halt and deposited him into a fourth floor hallway. It was completely deserted at that time of the morning. Padilla walked past a pair of vending machines, heading toward the nurses' station. Two nurses, both of them female, were hanging out there. One was checking her Facebook feed, he noted with some disapproval, but at least the other appeared to be charting, updating patient records, or something.
"Good morning, ladies," he said politely, sliding his ID acr
oss the countertop towards them. The closer of the two took it and inspected it.
"FBI," she said, her eyes darting between the photo on the ID and Padilla's actual face. "You must be here about poor Piotr."
"That's right. Poor Piotr," Padilla affirmed, putting enough emphasis on the word poor to qualify it as sarcasm. "Poor Piotr, the human slave trafficker."
The nurses both looked at one another silently. Finally, the one who had spoken handed him his ID back and said, "How exactly can we help you, Special Agent?"
"It's very simple. We have it on good authority that Mr. Blinov, while far from recovered, is at least stable enough to be moved. Is that correct?"
"Moved?" the nurse frowned, her brow furrowing in puzzlement. "Moved where, exactly?"
After reading the name embroidered on her scrubs in cursive writing, Padilla fixed her with a level gaze. "Are you aware of just exactly what this man is responsible for, Nurse Gibbons?"
Janie Gibbons, an athletic blonde Boulderite who had graduated from nursing school two years ago, wasn't going to let herself be cowed by anybody, even if he was an FBI agent. "Only what I've read in the newspapers and online," she said, refusing to break eye contact with him. Padilla respected her for that. A good nurse always had the best interests of their patient at heart, after all, no matter what nastiness the patient had gotten up to before being entrusted into their care.
"Then you know the highlights," the SA lied, "and you understand why Mr. Blinov has to be moved to a more secure facility."
"Uh, I guess..."
Padilla lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "A number of your patient's former colleagues and employers — by which I mean members of the Russian mob — would like to see him silenced. Permanently. The injuries that they have already inflicted on him, while admittedly terrible, were just the start. The Russian mafia doesn't like to leave a job halfway done, especially when it involves leaving a loose end that might turn around and testify against them once it recovers."