Depraved 2

by Bryan Smith

  The gun pressed harder into her back and Jessica had no choice but to comply. Zelda stayed close as they climbed the steps to the deck and entered the house. It was darker inside now and Jessica banged her hip on the kitchen table. The screech the table legs made on the floor tiles startled the assassin and she shoved Jessica forward hard enough to make her stumble and drop to her knees. Zelda did this in case hitting the table was part of some planned diversionary tactic. It wasn’t, of course, but the woman’s reaction suggested she had been badly rattled by the outcome of their previous confrontation. This was a woman unaccustomed to being on the losing side of anything and she wasn’t about to let it happen again.

  She hauled Jessica upright and steered her into the living room. The room was cloaked in shadow now and Jessica again banged into a piece of furniture as Zelda pushed her forward, this time into the coffee table. One of the tools she’d used on Billy slid off the table and thumped on the floor. Zelda cursed and grabbed her by the neck, maneuvered her around the coffee table, and shoved her onto the musty old sofa.

  Zelda clamped a hand under Jessica’s jaw and squeezed hard to force her mouth open. The sight of the gun scraped the roof of Jessica’s mouth as the barrel was rammed into the open cavity. The trigger guard mashed against her chin. She gagged the way she had as a child when the doctor stuck a tongue depressor down her mouth at checkup time. Jessica had squared off against some formidable opponents over the years, but Zelda was the scariest. The woman was her match on every level and it was clear sheer luck had played a large role in her narrow escape this morning.

  “I should end you now. Just paint that wall behind you red and be done with this shit.”

  Zelda shifted her grip to Jessica’s throat, making her gag again as her hand clamped tighter against her flesh. The sound of her discomfort made the woman smile. She was getting off on making Jessica suffer, which was surprising. The best professional killers did the work without emotion. It was how Jessica had worked until things started going wrong, until she lost her grip. So maybe that was happening to Zelda now. This was no longer just a job. It was personal, a grudge match. Given time and even just a little freedom of movement, Jessica might have found a way to take advantage of the woman’s fury, but there was nothing she could do with the barrel of a gun filling her mouth.

  Karma had come down on Jessica like the proverbial ton of bricks. A short while ago she had been on the opposite side of this equation, the sadist terrorizing a helpless person. Not for the first time, she figured she was probably getting what some malevolent cosmic force thought she deserved.

  Zelda took the gun from her mouth and let go of her neck. “There’s some things I want you to know before you die.”

  Jessica coughed and winced at the rawness in her throat. “What possible difference could any of it make?”

  The back of Zelda’s hand snapped across her face. “It makes a difference to me, bitch!”

  She hit Jessica twice more, harder each time, before backing off and stalking away to the other side of the room, where she stood in a corner and seethed without speaking for several moments. Her breathing came in harsh gasps and it was clear she was struggling to control her rage. The room had become so dark she looked like a faceless mannequin someone had propped in the corner. The illusion was spoiled, however, when she took a cell phone from a pocket of her tight leather jacket and made a call.

  “Hey. Yeah. I’m in sector eight. I need power.” There was a brief pause. “Uh huh. Grid three. Lot nine. Yeah. Okay.”

  Jessica was privy only to Zelda’s side of the brief conversation, but what she heard was enough to make her insides churn with worry. An agent of the enemy should not have access to anyone with the ability to turn the lights on in Hopkins Bend. She spent the next few seconds praying she had misinterpreted what she’d heard. This desperate hope was crushed when the overhead light popped on, illuminating a smallish room festooned with cobwebs.

  Jessica looked at Zelda.

  The assassin was smiling.

  “Are you starting to get it now, bitch?”

  Some obvious possibilities came to mind right away, including a few complicated and unlikely scenarios. The most plausible by far was also the simplest one. Simple logic told her it had to be true, but the possibility was so disturbing that no part of her could accept it. All she could do was shake her head and mutter words of denial in a plaintive voice.

  Zelda laughed. “Ah, the veil has been lifted. Go ahead and cry, Jessica. You must feel so hurt, so betrayed. I’d cry, too.”

  Jessica’s expression turned steely. “You’re not a foreign agent.”

  “Give the lady a prize. She’s not as dumb as she looks.”

  The assassin’s mocking tone grated, but Jessica worked hard to rein in her emotions. A fire was burning inside her, building toward an explosion that would probably get her killed. Once she knew all there was to know, she would launch herself at this smirking cunt with everything she had. With her hands cuffed, the attempt was doomed to fail, but she would try it anyway. She had little left to live for at this point and would rather die fighting than on her knees. And, hell, maybe she’d get lucky, maybe catch the bitch just enough off-guard to hit her hard and break her goddamn neck.

  But first…

  “You’re U.S. military. Black ops, like me.”

  Zelda smiled and said nothing. It was answer enough

  Jessica shifted to the edge of the sofa and rolled her shoulders to loosen the muscles. The slight stiffening of Zelda’s posture indicated she was ready for anything. The odds were still stacked overwhelmingly in her favor, after all. She had the gun, the coffee table was between them, and Jessica’s hands were zip-cuffed. Regardless, she knew better than to take Jessica lightly.

  Hoping it would keep Zelda from getting too twitchy, she put a note of real-sounding defeat in her voice. This wasn’t at all difficult to fake with these latest revelations, which proved her situation had achieved an irreversible level of fucked-up beyond all recognition. There would never be any putting things right again. There would be no resumption of her normal life and no going home again, not ever. “My own people sent you to kill me. This isn’t a revenge thing, it’s a CYA thing.”

  Zelda giggled like a schoolgirl.

  Jessica frowned. “What?”

  Zelda giggled again. “You’re still not really getting it. You think you’ve been betrayed and you have, but you’re not looking deep enough. Care to guess again?”

  Jessica’s frown became a scowl. “I’m done playing your game. Why don’t you just tell me what I’m apparently too fucking dense to guess?”

  Zelda moved into the middle of the room. There was a look of predatory anticipation in her eyes. Jessica found it profoundly unsettling. She was a gorgeous woman, but in that moment she looked demonic. The way she licked her lips like a wolf approaching cornered prey enhanced the impression.

  “Your father hired me.”

  Jessica sat frozen on the edge of the sofa a beat longer.

  And then she screamed in rage and attempted to launch herself over the coffee table at Zelda. Unfortunately, her foot hit the edge of the table and she pitched forward, knocking more of the tools she’d used on Billy to the floor. Though a part of her knew how useless the effort was, she tried hard to raise herself off the table and take another shot at Zelda, but the goddamn zip-tie cuffs were too much of a handicap. By the time she managed to get to her knees, Zelda was ready. The butt of the 9mm hit her in the face and blood burst from her split bottom lip.

  Seconds later Zelda had her pinned to the sofa with the gun shoved down her throat again. Jessica gagged as blood spilled down her chin. She was as close to death now as she had been in the last moments of the struggle with Billy. Her fear of it was still there, but it was dimmer now, hidden behind a black wall of hate and denial. Her eyes bugged out and projected that hate at Zelda, who clearly loved seeing it.

  She put a hand on Jessica’s neck and smiled. “Jesus, I lo
ve how fast your heart is beating. It’s delicious.”

  Jessica glared at her and tried hard not to move a muscle. It was all she could do.

  Zelda laughed. “So here’s the rest of it, bitch. All the proof you need that I’m not just playing with you. I’m doing this because you hurt me earlier. Nobody hurts me and gets away with it. So now I’m gonna hurt you worse than anyone ever has.”

  Jessica didn’t want to hear it. Instead she wanted the bullet that would blow apart the back of her skull. Because anything, even death, would be better than confronting this looming truth, the one the logical, disconnected part of her mind was circling even as the rest of her fought so hard against it.

  “Your father sent me after you because you embarrassed him. He pulled a lot of strings to get you the position you had and how did you repay him?” Zelda smiled and licked her lips in that hungry, zestful way again. “You botched the biggest assignments of your career in spectacular fashion. And then, when you couldn’t handle the fallout, you got sloppy drunk and said things you had no business saying to people who had no business hearing them.”

  Zelda took the gun out of Jessica’s mouth. “So tell me, blondie. Am I lying?”

  Jessica had very little fight left in her. She had started the day feeling sick and tired and now the last dregs of the energy she’d summoned to see her through the crisis had deserted her. It was so tempting to surrender to the exhaustion settling deep in her bones.

  She wanted only to sleep.

  And soon she would. Forever.

  She sighed. “I believe you.”

  Zelda let go of her and retreated to the center of the room again. “God, you’ve been so easily manipulated. The story you were fed about this place being abandoned was bullshit. The behavioral scientists and some of the other think tank geeks on the payroll are conducting ongoing social and psychological experiments on the local yokels. Your sweet daddy hoped you would head straight here if you ever had to run. And you didn’t let him down. For once. By the way, you know how your mother committed suicide?” She laughed at the look of horror on Jessica’s face. “More bullshit. That was his doing, too.”

  Zelda aimed the 9mm at Jessica’s face.

  Jessica closed her eyes and waited for it.

  “So there you have it, Jessica Sloan. Your whole miserable life has been a lie. Goodbye, bitch.”

  Jessica flinched at the sound of the gunshot.

  But there were a few curious things about that moment, the first being that she’d heard the gunshot at all. The bullet should have killed her before the sound could register. The second curious thing was the sound of glass shattering. And there was one more incongruous noise—a heavy thump that sounded like a body hitting the floor.

  Jessica opened her eyes and looked at the dead assassin. There was a ragged hole in her chest, still seeping blood.

  Well, shit.

  The shattered window indicated someone had shot her from outside, probably someone standing in the street with a high-powered rifle. Jessica heaved herself to her feet and kicked the coffee table out of the way. Her intent was to head out the back door and run as fast as she could as long as she could, maybe take cover somewhere in the tall grass. Before she could do that, however, someone kicked the front door open.

  Two big men decked out in standard redneck garb came into the house.

  One of them, a giant with a thick beard and a beer gut of epic proportions, pointed a rifle at her and grinned. “Hold on, darlin’. You ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

  Jessica stopped in her tracks.

  Shit.

  24.

  The door to the dining room opened and Horst entered bearing a small black case made of hard plastic. He set the case on a corner of the hibachi table near Kate’s head, flipped the latches in front, and raised the lid. Nestled in a bed of gray foam was a large syringe filled with a dark fluid. Horst took the syringe from its bed of foam and removed its cap to reveal a wickedly long needle. He gave the plunger a little push and a droplet of neon green fluid emerged from the tip of the needle.

  Daphne glanced at Vivian. “What’s that for?”

  “It’s an experimental drug that counteracts the effects of shock and slows the rate of blood loss in a trauma victim without causing a loss of consciousness. The sow will remain perfectly aware of what’s happening almost to the point of death.”

  Horst bent over Kate and placed the needle against her quivering neck. She winced as he pushed the plunger and the needle pierced her flesh. He took his time injecting the fluid, pausing several times and laughing when the muscles in her body began to spasm.

  Vivian chuckled. “Oh, I forgot to mention. I’m told the drug causes an incredibly painful burning sensation as it’s introduced to the system.”

  “Where the hell would you get something like that?”

  Vivian slipped a hand beneath the hem of Daphne’s little black dress and began to lightly stroke her thigh. “You shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about that. But I’ll say this—we have resources that would surprise you. There’s much more to our operation than meets the eye.”

  Daphne felt a rush of heat in her loins as Vivian’s questing fingers drifted higher, coming ever closer to the juncture between her legs. She sucked in a sharp little breath when fingertips teased her sex with great delicacy. It felt nice. She was getting wet. She smiled. “I believe you. Nothing surprises me much anymore.”

  Everyone at the table—with the obvious exception of the mewling sow shackled to the grill—chuckled at this comment.

  Daphne glanced at each of them in turn before allowing her gaze to settle on Vivian again. “Obviously I’ve said something amusing. What is it?”

  “I’m afraid my guests have you at a disadvantage. As semi-regulars here, they know what’s coming.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  There was a playful edge to Vivian’s smile. “Not in the least. I’m confident you’ll love what I have planned.” Her probing hand molded itself against Daphne’s vulva, the middle finger sliding between her labia. “You see, I have a feeling about you. You’re going to be something more than just another sow turned plaything.”

  Daphne made a soft sound of pleasure. “Mmm…how can you know that?”

  “It’s just a feeling I get sometimes. And my feelings are rarely wrong. I feel like you’re one of us, like you were meant for this life.”

  Horst at last finished injecting the green concoction into Kate’s neck. She closed her eyes and whimpered as he withdrew the needle and replaced it in the case. After snapping the case shut, he grabbed her remaining nipple and gave it a savage twist, sneering as she cried out and jerked against her restraints with more energy than she’d managed in a while.

  Daphne looked at Vivian and smiled. “I think you might be right about that. Besides, I like the idea of being part of an exclusive club.”

  Barbara Prescott dabbed at a corner of her mouth with a napkin, laughing softly in a controlled, aristocratic way. “We’re so much more than that, though. We are society’s secret elite, a privileged class above the rest of humanity.” She was looking right at Daphne, her gaze frank and appraising. “You come from money, don’t you? I can always tell.”

  Daphne sketched a bit of her background, mentioning her old money roots and how she had been pampered her whole life. “I’ve never had to work a day in my life.”

  Barbara nodded. “Of course you haven’t. That’s what menfolk and the lower classes are for.”

  Daphne giggled. All the wine she’d consumed was catching up to her. “That’s what I’ve always thought,” she admitted.

  Barbara smiled and directed a wink at Vivian. “You may have stumbled upon a keeper here.”

  Vivian beamed at Daphne. “I think you’re right.”

  Klaus came back into the room as his brother departed with the hypo case. He again took up his position on the opposite side of the table from Daphne and went back to work on Kate, cutting with remarkable deftness
, the blade slicing through the middle of one of Kate’s many colorful tattoos as he removed a three-inch strip of thigh meat and dropped it on the grill in front of Daphne. Blood seeped from the wound, a marked contrast to the wild spurts that had accompanied Klaus’s first few incursions into Kate’s flesh. The mystery drug was performing as promised. It helped that the butcher was so adept at avoiding the major arteries.

  Daphne poked her fork at the strip of thigh meat, making it sizzle as she moved it around on the grill. She glanced at Kate’s anguished expression as she did this and smiled. That Kate’s misery no longer sparked even the mildest pang of regret pleased Daphne. She saw it as proof of her resilience and adaptability. And the poor idiot simply hadn’t possessed those qualities in sufficient quantity. She flipped the meat strip over and moved it around some more, making it sizzle again.

  Survival of the fittest, she thought. That’s what it’s always about in the end.

  She speared the strip of thigh meat with her fork and set it on her plate. After cutting it into bite-sized chunks, she plopped one into her mouth and began to chew, closing her eyes and groaning in ecstasy at the explosion of flavor. Klaus really had done a masterful job of marinating the bitch to perfection. She heard laughter as she continued to chew and make rapturous, almost sexually ecstatic noises.

  She opened her eyes and grinned. “Oh, my God, Kate tastes amazing.”

  Vivian made a tsk-tsk sound, but she was smiling. “We shouldn’t refer to them by name, dear. They aren’t people. They’re food. You wouldn’t name the turkey at Thanksgiving, would you?”

  Daphne swallowed and washed down the morsel with a gulp of wine. Before replying, she let her gaze travel the length of Kate’s voluptuous form, recalling her earlier impression that she would have made an excellent burlesque performer, particularly in one of those alternative revues so popular with the hipsters. That wasn’t so much the case anymore, unless the revue had a Grand Guignol or Halloween theme.