* * * * *
The few hesitant tendrils of hope that had budded in David Powell’s breast after seeing his friend alive and awake didn’t last.
Not long after Lewis finished his lengthy conversation with Innocent, their captors barged in. The thugs moved more quickly than the priest and his companions, and the three were pulled rather roughly to their feet.
“Do we finally get to stretch our legs? I’ve been itching to have another gander about this place.”
Of course, none of their kidnappers deigned reply, but the policeman gave David a faint half-smile.
The ferret-faced chap gripped Innocent by the arm and led him out with hardly a word. As soon as they were out the door and off down the corridor, the remaining heavies began tying up the priest and his friend.
“A wee bit tighter…. Ah! Yes, now I can’t feel my hands.”
Lew snorted. He might’ve said something, but one of the thugs shoved a gag in the policeman’s mouth just then.
“From all these ropes they’re using, Lew, I’d almost believe they think us dangerous.”
The sergeant snorted again, his eyes crinkling in humor.
One of the men tying the priest started to gag him as well, but accidentally dropped the kerchief.
In that brief interim, David shelved his silly attempts at levity and said softly, seriously, “Release us. Please. For the good of you future, your souls – please: let us go.”
An odd sort of magnanimity swelled in the priest’s breast then: he’d been able to sway them to his will last evening (for the good of his friend, of course); might his words now be similarly fruitful? Could he encourage them to a better path?
Please, God….
Since none of the thugs were speaking among each other, the clergyman’s plea carried easily through the room. Most ignored him. The blonde glanced at him with a frown. The thug who had taken such offense at him last night and beat him accordingly (the one called Venn) – he took offense again.
“Shut hit, you.”
Venn had been helping secure the policeman; now he reached over and seized David’s shirtfront in one large paw, hauling the shorter man off balance.
“Your soul, man!” the priest said urgently. “For the good of—”
The prick of something hard and sharp under his chin forced the priest’s mouth shut with a snap. (Apparently the knives were out now.) Lewis uttered something in indignation, but gagged, it was wordless and ineffectual. Even so, his effort earned him a knife to the throat as well.
Venn leaned close, his nose almost touching David’s, as he snarled, “Bloody harrogant! You dare judge me?!”
Spittle flecked onto the clergyman’s cheek; with the knife digging in so stingingly, David could say nothing in reply. He felt a thin, hot trickle snake down the skin of his throat.
“Why can’ hit be ‘im?”
Venn’s question was directed at the blonde, and though the angry bruiser’s attention was temporarily diverted, the hold and the knife stayed put.
“‘E’s not has much trouble,” the crew leader replied impassively, touching the scabbed gash on his cheek for emphasis. “Gagged leastwise.”
With a growl, Venn released his hold on the priest and shoved him back toward the pair that’d been tying him.
While the thugs gagged him, David tried to catch his friend’s eye, but one of the others had yanked a dark hood over the policeman’s head.
Lewis submitted passively to their captors’ attentions – whether this was because he hadn’t the strength to protest as before, or thought it futile against the odds, or wanted to lull their foes to complacency before acting (no doubt a well-considered plan whichever) – and now stood still, blind, and mostly incapacitated a few steps from David.
What happened next occurred almost too quickly for the priest to comprehend.
The blonde wordlessly nodded to a seething Venn. As the enraged heavy scowled, the crew leader waved a hand toward the sergeant.
Venn whirled, let out a roar, and then attacked.
His knife flashed dully as he stabbed Lewis twice, once in each leg. On the second, he gave the blade a twist as he yanked it free.
It happened so quickly.
Then both David and his friend cried out at the same time – the policeman uttering a choked moan of agony to the priest’s shout of dismay.
Lewis would’ve crumpled to the floor if a pair of their captors had not been holding him already, as this was apparently part of some plan. As it was, he more or less stayed upright. Blood crept down Lew’s trousers from the wounds on the outside of each of his thighs, staining dark fabric darker. Under the hood, his breath sawed in and out in half-whimpering gasps.
“Once would ‘ave been henough.” The blonde noted drily. “Now you’ll ‘ave to carry ‘im.”
Wiping his reddened blade on a bit of Lew’s shirt, Venn shrugged. “Worth hit.”
A hood over his head threw David’s world into sudden blackness; his thoughts didn’t focus to any clarity again until he realized they’d been hauled some distance away from their prison into the tunnels.
God! What had he done?
His words – his own words – had caused his friend agony. His thoughtlessness had driven that other fellow to such wrath…Lew’s newest hurts were on David’s head.
What have I done? What have I done? WhathaveIdone…
Unbidden, the memory of the accident from two years ago overwhelmed his semi-cogent thoughts.
Convicted Innocent Page 21