Down, down he went, and I hadn’t even needed to use Red.
The water made this killing as silent as a distant ballet. Arms were knotted in, tucked in, their legs wrapping over the bucking man. Bubbles trailed upward, dwindling to nothing. The girls smothered him, and by now his lungs must be full of water. His jacket edge flapped lazily, spreading out.
The reflection of the underwater lights created wriggly patterns of light across the pool walls and the water surface. This knot of humans became a multi-colored spider lazing about near the bottom. Beneath, where their flesh blocked the light, a clot of snaking shadows lurked.
Snakes and spiders? I smiled. How apt.
I waited until nothing moved except for the water, their hair, and the clothes. When a slow unraveling of limbs began, I studied them again to make sure they were dead.
They were.
Then I stooped and picked up the keys. I gestured to Red. Wordless, and with her own eyes gleaming a strange darkness as if I’d infected her with my vileness, she trailed after me. It was just the nighttime shadows, although the idea of her joining me in my murderous, lecherous world was intriguing.
As far as I knew, I had never infected anyone with my mesmer abilities. Though Wolfe said it was an infection, he’d also said it was terribly selective and we were always male.
I threw the keys into the air, caught them. Wet. They would function as a key to unlock the doors manually, if not electronically. The vehicle might not start, but of course I only wanted my case.
Just the case and my Red.
I passed the office and made sure the manager would not check the pool for ages, and that she would forget we had even been at the resort. Our room, she would clean that personally.
No records.
Only the man and his vehicle would still remain. He’d walked in through the alley that led between the resort units. After retrieving our minimal luggage and getting Red to change into a flowing blue dress, I found the man’s Range Rover.
I took out the large case that was big enough to squeeze a bound girl into, then I flagged down a woman on the street and had her drive us away. Red and I sat in the back.
“Pull up your dress and play with yourself. Amuse me. Don’t come.”
I yawned as she did so. I grew a hard-on seeing her hand shove beneath her panties and her thighs part as she worked at herself, as she moaned loudly, but somehow it was boring. What could I do to her I had not already done? Why the fuck did I not get rid of her?
I should have drowned her.
I lay back in the seat, keeping an eye on the panting Red and that hand delving between her legs, smelling her copious arousal, hearing the occasional wet noise as she bent forward and shoved her fingers deep.
The streetlights grew sparser and the outside grew darker.
This woman driving us would be left wondering why she obeyed me.
None of them would be able to tell anyone else about me or about Red. Not the resort manager, not this driver, and certainly not the dead ones.
Ninety-nine percent of females could be made to do anything for me. Anything.
It had almost become too easy.
* * * * *
That itchy buzz that grabbed me more and more had done this. It made me want to feel more, to do something somehow different. I couldn’t decide what it was I wanted, so I usually did something else until it faded.
Three AM and I was playing with risk like I rarely did.
The latest SUV was parked at the end of this alley. Garbage bins and exit doors were the main decorations here. The club playing the music currently booming out and filling every bit of space in my ears had a fire exit door next to my shoulder. Bricks dug into my shoulder blades through the light shirt I wore, and someone had thrown up nearby. The smell was as pervasive as the music.
Perfectly degrading.
To my right, Red stood facing the end wall of the alley, with her dress straps pulled halfway down her shoulders. Another exit door lay under her palms and she had her legs spread with her dress hitched above the swell of her ass. Her white panties were in place but anyone looking would know in an instant that her tits were out.
On the paving beneath her spread legs was a pool of liquid and I’d made sure to spill some come onto her legs when I withdrew.
Recently ass-fucked, arms shaking, and she was moaning because I was keeping her on the edge of arousal.
She looked like a slut waiting for her next customer, and I’d unclouded her mind, so she knew exactly what was happening. She knew exactly how this would look. Men had already ventured partway into the alley to check. When I shook my head, they’d left, after spewing various filthy comments and laughter.
A few men had threatened to do worse to her than I had.
Those had made me smile.
Like I said, risky, because males were beyond my control. The adrenalin was making my heart thud like a racehorse on the gallop. It made me feel alive.
I could almost… almost hear her whimpers, her begging. She was mute, but sometimes I could swear I heard her thoughts.
“What was that Red? Want to come? Want me to call them back?”
I’d screw her one more time then tow her back to the car, messed up, horny, and scared.
Most days I kept her a little spacey. Not today.
Her next whimper was audible. I wished I had a drink, or something stronger, except I didn’t use drugs. I couldn’t know for certain what weird effects drugs would have on me. Wolfe had drummed that in.
At the sound of hard shoes walking into the alley, Red’s fingers shifted on the door.
Three men advanced, hands loose at their sides, all of them bulky guys. I assessed them – they were determined and quiet in their approach.
My risks may have come home to roost.
My heartbeat stepped up the power, thudding at my chest. This was surely what living should be? I’d discovered a new kink. I slipped a hand into a pocket and found the flick knife. Then I stepped out, shielding Red from their view, ready for them, or so I hoped. Uncertainty was both a bitch and what was making my exhilaration climb. For once, I didn’t know the outcome.
“Not for sale, guys. Just a little fun for me.”
“Hey.” The one on my right held up a hand. “No worries. You sure though? She looks tasty as fuck.”
“No.” I smiled. “Just no.”
“A little group sexy-times?” The far-left one did a hip sway and grind while grinning.
“N—”
Simultaneously, they dived on me. The heavy gut punch then a head punch, then a throat punch, landed one-two-three, before I could pull the knife. I was spinning to the floor, gasping, throat rasping… and something bashed at the back of my head….
More blows landed.
My last thought: Red.
Darkness cascaded.
CHAPTER 2
ISAK
I woke, sitting, tied to chair. Classic gangster move. Despite the painful thumping inside my skull, I tried to make sense of the dim room.
Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
The pain closed me down again before I wriggled up through the black. Blinking, I cleared my throat.
“Hey. He’s awake.”
Someone brought another chair over and sat facing me. He was tallish, tattooed, and shaved almost bald. His dark T-shirt sleeves struggled to contain his biceps. His broad hands splayed on the thighs of his jeans and he cocked his head slightly, studying me. To either side of me other men stood – guards, clearly. The room though, it was opulent.
This was a living room with gray sofas, downlights, red-shaded standing lamps, cream walls lined with paintings, and sculptures on columns.
If this was his house, he was at least mildly well-off.
“You were a hard man to track down, sir.” His voice surprised me. Rugged, cracked, but deep and slow to get the words out. As if he had all the time in the world to do whatever shit he had in mind.
I twitched my mouth. Already I coul
d tell my headache wasn’t going away fast. Nausea lurked at the edges, bulging and worming into my stomach. The room felt unsteady under my bare feet. They’d removed my shoes but nothing else. From the sharper pain in my right temple, I had a cut there.
I squeezed my eyes shut, then open again.
“We’ll get that fixed.” He nodded at my forehead. “I’ll even have you untied, if you convince me you’re sensible?”
I shrugged. “What do you want?”
“Andy was my man. Well, he sometimes did jobs for me. You killed him.”
Oh. Him.
“He was sending that chat to me when you drowned him.”
That cellphone… Definitely him. “I did not touch him.”
“Yeah, yeah. You can call me… Ted.” He shifted, raised a finger. “Bring me a beer.” Someone walked away.
We both waited, studying each other, though I pretended to be having problems focusing and keeping my eyes open – which was not difficult to do since it was close to the truth. The man returned and handed my friendly interrogator, Fake Ted, a beer.
After one swig, he leaned in and let the bottle hang between his knees by finger and thumb.
“I know what you can do. Clearly, you can even get the ladies to kill for you. Die for you. And to fucking forget what happened or why. I have some info from the cop interview. The manager can’t even remember you were there. She has no prior record. An honest, unsullied citizen, and you left her confused as fuck.” He shook his head. “Stunning.”
I grunted, feeling as if I should contribute something. Ted had quite the vocab for a tattooed criminal.
From somewhere outside – a playground maybe – came the muffled laughter of a child. It seemed the essence of irony, considering this cunt would probably hurt me if I thwarted him.
“So, promise me we will have that talk you deprived Andy of, and I’ll get you untied. I will get your head looked at.”
The zip ties weren’t coming off without a cutter, and I was severely outnumbered. “Sure. We can talk.”
“Do it.” He whistled to his henchlings. “And get that doctor in here. She said she needed to check his thick head.”
One of his men went behind me and reached down to snip the plastic.
“Note.” Ted raised the beer and wagged it at me. “No monkey business. None of this hypnotizing. No fucking around. The doc may be a woman, but she’s leaving as soon as she checks you. Mac will escort her out, drive her home.”
“Okay.”
That made it difficult though delayed command was not impossible, if they left me alone with her.
A woman in long tan pants and a black, tailored, business shirt entered with another of Ted’s henchmen. Her hair showed streaks of gray and her eyes swam with fear when the man by her side – Mac, I assumed – growled some words to her ear.
She opened a rectangular case on the floor, pulled out some gear, and checked my eyes, my forehead and my scalp, and to get me to do some things like follow her fingers, grip her hand, and generally tell her what hurt where.
While she was packing away her stethoscope, I curled over and leaned on my knees for a few seconds. It wasn’t a ruse. I felt like shit.
“Concussion, though mild.” She rummaged among the drawers she had concertinaed up from the depths of the long box.
Medicine and pills were shuffled around, picked up, rearranged, until she found what she was looking for. “I can’t give you much. That cut is shallow, and antiseptic is enough for it. He really needs monitoring at a hospital.”
“No,” Ted said gruffly.
“Okay. Just painkillers then.” She began rattling off details about what to take when that I barely listened to, and writing on a sticky label – then seemed annoyed when I wouldn’t give her a name to write on it.
As if I wanted a label with my name on it. Even Ted grinned at her protests.
By then though… by then they had dragged in Red by the hair with her hands bound behind her. By then I had seen the sample sheet of Keppra pills.
At the sight of Red, the doc had paused, mouth gaping, still clutching that bottle of analgesics while she watched them manhandle Red onto her knees.
Red looked a mess – not that I’d left her looking pretty and perfect. They had actually pulled the top of her dress into place, so in a way she was improved upon. The come had been cleaned from her legs too, I thought. I wasn’t sure… things were going blurry.
Keppra. I flicked my gaze back to the case, zeroed in on them.
This was the drug Wolfe had given me. The one that made mesmers less powerful and less dangerous. The one I’d left alone for years as proof of my willpower. The drug I avoided like Superman does kryptonite.
Tonight, today, I could die, so could Red. I frowned.
What did it matter? What did I really want? That itch to seek something more scratched at me again. Was this my kryptonite or was it a necessary correction, as Wolfe had insisted?
“Get her out. Leave the bottle,” Ted said.
She nodded and leaned in to pack the box, then tossed in the excess pill packets.
“I need the Keppra!” I spat the words before I could think more on this.
Why?
Because.
Flustered, the doc pulled a slim packet, with one sheet of pills inside, from her supplies. She offered it sans label, sans verbal instructions. Her face was flushed, and she bit her lip as I took the packet from her.
“Hey! Why?” Ted echoed my own thoughts. “What for? What’s Keppra?”
“It’s an anti-seizure drug.” She folded down the case. “If he knows he needs it, I’m assuming he knows what he should take and why.” Eyes down, she clicked the last latch, showing every sign of a woman who wanted to run from a situation that frightened her.
“Yes. I do.”
Lies, of course.
Ted looked skeptical but let her leave, with Mac at her elbow. Only when some distant door banged shut did he nod at the pills in my hand. “You get the painkillers, but now you tell me why this other stuff.”
I stared at the half-open packet. What did I want to tell him? The less truth he had the better.
“Do her. Fuck her silly.” Ted smiled as he snapped his fingers and instructed his men. “You promised you’d talk. Lying gets me cross.”
“Cross?”
“Cross. Angry? Yeah. This girl is yours? I have the info Andy had. You let other guys screw her when you felt like it. So she’s not a big deal but she is yours? Wrong. She’s mine now. Least she is until you talk.”
Fuck. No. I glared through the red streaks flashing across my field of vision, though reacting like a monkey with a banana waved before it would be enormously wrong. Ted would get more ideas.
I braced myself, even as I seethed. She was mine. If I dirtied her up that was my choice.
My stupefied brain ran through all sorts of possibilities. None of them would succeed. A. Because my feet wouldn’t work, let alone my fists. B? Because I had no females to tell to rip the heads off these men. C. Because they had guns.
I could quieten her though. Leave Red in Lalaland while they did this.
She’d barely notice them inside her.
Yes.
I frowned as they bent her over a sofa and yanked down her panties. I shut my eyes yet still registered her discomfit when one of them held her head and neck to the cushions while the other one shoved his cock into her.
Anger rose, unbidden, climbing swiftly to hairy-backed, knuckle-dragging, neanderthal heights.
I wanted to rip him into tiny fucking shreds. I was on the verge of doing what I should not do. I clawed back some sense, and sat there stewing, head burning with the pounding aches. Something was going to snap, and I barely comprehended why this made me so angry.
I watched them screw her one after the other, then leave her there, half undressed.
She hadn’t sobbed. She certainly couldn’t come without me. The men seemed confused when she merely stared past Ted and me, at th
e wall.
With my face resting on my hands and my fingers cradled over my nose, with my eyes watering, I waited and waited. That child squealed gleefully outside, and a small detail that I had missed popped to the surface. It was a girl child.
I’d never touched anyone that young or that distant before. Tentatively, powered by ire, annoyance, blood lust, or maybe just a need for revenge, I reached. I locked on.
I fucking-well locked on and knew in an instant whose girl child I had. But what could a twelve-year-old do against many armed men? There was this one thing.
“Get him some water for those painkillers.” The man looked disappointed at my lack of hysterics. He clicked his fingers for that water and swallowed more beer.
Once I’d downed a couple of the analgesics and handed back the plastic tumbler, Ted pursed his lips.
“Talk.”
“Or what?” I murmured, pressing my finger and thumb over my eyes. My anger had dulled to crackling embers. “They’ll do me like they did her?”
“Maybe. Though I’d have to pay them extra. Don’t make me do that. I hate wasting money. You can control women?”
“Most.”
“For how long?”
“While they’re with me. They forget things, too, if I say to forget. They won’t reveal what happened to them.” I would vomit a bit of detail, and maybe then he’d let me rest. Then I could sort out an escape plan. “I can get any of the susceptible ones to fuck you, if I want.”
“Jesus.” He sat back, pulled on his beer. “Andy was right. And the Keppra?”
Ah, the Keppra. I revolved the packet. “It enables me. It’s a weird side effect. I need it to hypnotize them.”
“So it is hypnosis! I knew it. Had to be. Fuck.”
Well. I had him swearing and looking triumphant, though the floor had decided to spin, which leeched away some of my amusement.
I swore unintelligible curses under my breath, and I wasn’t faking it. “Look. Your cunts thumped my head. Like the doc said, I have concussion, a merry-go-round in my head. Let me rest. Tomorrow, I will give you a demo.”
The Book of Red: ISAK & Red and bonus prequel Used Page 8