by S. T. Boston
“Five seconds, Mr. Becker,” he growled, the urge to snap the woman's neck almost too tempting to ignore. In his mind, he could already feel her delicate bones cracking and splitting beneath his hands. He focused his attention on the bedroom door, partially obscured by a slight kink in the line of the hallway. He knew Peltz was dead, his highly-tuned hearing had heard his bones break, just the way he longed to break Lucie Becker's neck. Namtar wished he'd sent the other guy, Croaker instead of Peltz. Out of the two, Peltz seemed more professional, and he didn't like the way the last member of his team was leering at Lucie Becker's naked body. It made him feel unclean. He knew only too well what would happen if he left the girl in Croaker's care and as much as he had no duty of care toward her, he wouldn't let that happen. He deplored acts of sexual violence, it was a nasty, grubby trait of Earth-Human psyche that he was disappointed to see one of the Earth-Breed displaying. Too long living among the maggots, he thought, feeling repulsed. Acts of pure, unadulterated violence of a non-sexual nature, on the other hand, were more than okay. That's what gave him his kicks.
* * *
Sam cursed under his breath. He might be able to take out the guy perving on Lucie, but as soon as Namtar saw him spring from his hiding spot, gun in hand, he'd kill her. It took all his willpower not to act. From experience, he knew while they were both still breathing they had a chance, you never knew what hand fate might deal you. He scanned the corpse on the floor again, searching for a weapon he could hide somewhere on his body, but the Taser and knife were both too large. Cursing again, he removed the gun from the back of his Craghoppers and held it at arm's length, by the butt, between his thumb and forefinger. He rounded the edge of the door and dropped the Beretta to the floor, kicking it aside reluctantly. The other firearm remained on the nightstand.
“Hands to your sides, Mr. Becker, and palms facing out,” Namtar commanded.
Sam did as instructed, focusing his attention on Lucie's frightened eyes as he carried out the order. “It's okay,” he reassured her. It was a lie – their situation was pretty fucking far from okay; in fact, things couldn't be much worse, but who told the truth in a situation like this? “Just one request,” he added, chancing his luck, “let my wife put some clothes on, there is a robe in the bathroom.”
“Just stay right where you are,” Namtar demanded as he seemed to ponder the request. He looked at the other male and said, “Go see if there is a robe in there, if there is give it to her?” motioning with his head toward the bathroom.
“Shame,” the other guy said, sighing. “I was enjoying the view.” He flashed a knowing look at Sam which made his blood boil, it was all he could do to hold himself back from launching at the lecherous bastard. The guy disappeared into the bathroom and a second later he was back, a light blue towelling robe clasped in his right hand. He cast one last lascivious look over Lucie's naked skin, his eyes lingering on her breasts long enough to make Sam furious. He decided that when the time came, he was going to kill the bastard as slowly and painfully as possible.
“Put it on,” Namtar instructed, continuing to grip Lucie by the hair but allowing her enough room to slide the garment over her shoulders.
Lucie wrapped the robe around her body, covering as much skin as possible and quickly tied the cord around her waist. Sam was dismayed to see the fear in her eyes, the look that suggested she felt dirty and unclean under the guy's disgusting leer.
“Slowly now, Mr. Becker – walk with me through to the living room.” Sam watched as Namtar guided Lucie backwards, tugging her thick hair harder than necessary. He had taken hold of her left arm and twisted it behind her back, and Lucie shrieked in pain. Reaching the lounge, Namtar guided Sam's wife to the rear of the room, kicking the door shut. He fixed his emotionless gaze on Sam. “My colleague is going to handcuff you. I don't need to remind you what will happen if you resist.”
“Just let her go,” Sam said calmly. “You can take me – I won't put up a fight.”
“That's not the deal, Sam,” Namtar replied. “I need you both, and Adam Fisher. I suspect he's with Oriyanna and the other Arkkadian.”
Sam's mind span. Who was Namtar referring to? “Adam and Oriyanna are gone,” he said truthfully. “They left a couple of hours ago.” He thought quickly. “I wanted out, I've given all I can and then some. Our run-in over in France was the final straw, I'm a married man now and I've got too much to lose. We're not a part of this. Just let Lucie go; if you must, you can take me.” He eyed Croaker who was clutching a set of rigid cuffs in one hand. He was regarding Sam with a wary expression, as he if couldn't decide whether to approach or not. “They've gone to Liverpool to meet the other Arkkadian, I don't know what they plan to do from there. If I was still in, do you really think I'd be here?”
“A half-truth, Mr. Becker,” Namtar said suspiciously. “I don't believe that you're out, not for a second. Nice try, though!” He gestured for Croaker to stop procrastinating and get on with the job.
Croaker glanced uneasily at Sam and approached cautiously, as if Sam was a dangerous animal.
“What I think,” Namtar continued, “is that they have gone to meet with the Arkkadian, maybe in Liverpool, maybe not, and that you'll be expecting them back.”
“It's the truth,” smiled Sam. Sounding genuine, he held his hands out, wrists together and allowed Croaker to slip one of the cuffs on, and watched as he disengaged the second from the ratchet and got ready to clip it over his other wrist. “They're not coming back here, if you want them, you'll need to get to Liverpool. Waste your time if you like, but I can promise you they're not coming back.”
“But they might come after you, if they know we've got you,” Namtar smiled. There was a smouldering fury building in his gut; he had no time for this shit, he needed to be back on the plane, and soon. It drew his attention away from Lucie for a split second as he pondered the problem. It was the break Sam had been waiting for.
Before Croaker had a chance to secure the second cuff, Sam whipped his handcuffed wrist around, the disengaged blade flaying dangerously through the air in an arc. The end of the cuff buried itself in Croaker's left eye and hooked in behind the bridge of his nose. Sam tugged at the cuff, the blade bit at his wrist but the pain was nothing compared to the agonised expression creasing Croaker's face. He let out a shrill scream of surprise and panic as Sam tugged him forward, the curved cuff blade acting as a hook, latching itself into the cavity between the eye socket and nose bone. Croaker stumbled but the cuff broke the bone and peeled though his skin before he went down. The cuff completed its arc, the disengaged end dripping with blood and sporting a fresh flap of skin that covered the tip.
The attack caught Namtar by surprise and his grip on Lucie's hair and arm faltered, only for a split second, but it was long enough for her to react. She drove her right elbow back, deep into his ribs, making him double over in pain.
“Run!” Sam shouted, as Namtar quickly recovered from the blow. Lucie paused for a second, caught between the fight or flight response. In the end, Sam's command and her fear took over and she bolted for the door, crashing into it and keeping it closed with her body. Desperately, she clawed at the handle and finally managed to wrench it open. With a burst of adrenalin she sprinted, feeling the tips of Namtar's fingers run down the back of the bath robe, failing to find purchase when he grabbed for her. Barefoot, Lucie fled down the shingle drive, unaware of the stones as they cut and stabbed at her feet.
* * *
Sam watched in relief as Lucie made the door; suffering an agonising second of panic when she slammed into it, but she found the handle and opened it, escaping out into the sunlit afternoon as Namtar fruitlessly tried to grab hold of her. Sam seized the opportunity and slammed his weight into Croaker, who was clawing desperately at his punctured eye, shrieking in agony. Off balance, Croaker crashed to the floor, hitting a small lacquered table, on the way down. He continued to writhe and shriek, and the few seconds of delay allowed Namtar to reach into his jacket and remove a
pistol. Before Sam could cover the ground to his quarry, the gun went off with an unusually quiet ssnnapp sound. Sam felt the impact on his chest, but it wasn't the pain of a bullet. Inertia kept him moving for a second or two, before his legs turned to jelly. Falling to his knees, he glanced down at the impact point and registered the small yellow-feathered dart which protruded from his chest. The world spun, the floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor, and then the walls tumbled. He buried his head in the faded carpet as waves of nausea broke over him. He fought to remain lucid, but it was a futile struggle. Rolling onto his back, Sam watched five blurry versions of Namtar heading for the door and chasing after his wife.
* * *
It was the kind of fear you experienced as a child, running up a darkened staircase, almost certain that if you looked back, the boogieman would reach out from the darkness and grab you. Only this time, Lucie knew someone was in pursuit, and it was even more terrifying.
She fled across the cracked tarmac road at the foot of the canal bridge, and into the front yard of the sawmill. The desire to sprint the few hundred meters to the pub was overwhelming, but she knew that this particular pursuer wouldn't be worried about the general public, he would very likely kill everyone to get to her.
With her wet hair flying behind her and holding the dressing gown with one hand, she reached the front door of the mill. Her heart sank at the sight of the large chain affixed through the purposeful but rusty iron D-handles, locking it in place. She glanced behind her, not registering the Volvo C90 she'd sprinted past. Across the street, a few hundred yards back, she saw the guy who'd hauled her out of the bath. He reached the cottage gate and paused, his soulless eyes scanning for her. It didn't take long for him to see her and he wasted no time in careering toward her at a full sprint. Lucie screamed and broke to the right, rounding the old mill building. The prefabricated concrete building was showing its age, dirt streaking the cracked and peeling white paint, giving it a ramshackle appearance.
Lungs burning, and her heart slamming against her ribs, she reached the rear wall and cut to the left, escaping his line of sight. Another locked door halted her escape, and she kept running along the wall until she saw one of the iron framed windows which was slightly ajar. Stopping, her breath coming in deep, oxygen-hungry gasps, she clawed it open. The white paint flaked away on her fingers and turned to powder as the window reluctantly opened, creaking on rusted hinges. Wasting no time, she hauled herself up and threw herself into the building, rolling over a dirty work bench before tumbling to the floor. Pain flare =in her right shoulder as it struck the cold dusty concrete. Ignoring the pain, she shot to her feet and tried to heave the window closed, but to her frustration she couldn't get it completely shut. Abandoning her efforts, she headed further into the gloomy, cavernous building. Stacks of twisted, aged timber were dotted about, some half-collapsed, making Lucie think of a massive game of Pick-Up-Sticks. The air was thick with the smell of damp, dust and old machine oil.
Lucie examined her surroundings, searching for a place to hide. Her survival instincts fired up, and she suddenly remembered the band saw. She'd only been about four or five when her father had brought her into the building to get some firings cut for the shed roof, but she remembered the enormous saw the men had cut the timber on. Squinting in the diffused light, she saw it, silent and decaying at the other side of the mill. A massive spare blade was hanging over two hooks on the wall next to the sleeping giant, which looked like a rusty metal shark's jaw. The saw wasn't what she was after though; it was the pit beneath it she sought. Bending down, Lucie removed the plywood cover and peered inside; the remnants of the last piece of timber to pass through the band saw's hungry blades still covered the bottom of the pit. The sawdust was partially obscured by a mass of cobwebs, which hung like dirty silken drapes. Spiders were one of her least favourite creatures, but given the choice of the guy perusing her and a few harmless arachnids, the arachnids would win every time.
Glancing toward the window she heard the man's heavy footsteps pounding outside; they went past the window, faded a little, and then paused before growing louder again as he returned to the open frame. He'd obviously seen the gap. Lucie jumped into the pit and hauled the cover into place, plunging her into thick, black darkness.
* * *
Namtar dashed across the gravel drive, his feet crunching loudly on the shingle. He paused momentarily at the gate, scanning left and right before spotting the girl, a few hundred yards in front of him. She'd reached the front of the building opposite and was at a standstill, looking at a chained door. Then she saw him. They held each other's gaze for a split second before she broke into a sprint and pounded across the concrete with amazing dexterity and speed for someone lacking footwear. Namtar ran, fishing another dart from his jacket pocket as he went. He lost sight of her for no more than ten seconds, but as he rounded the back wall of the mill she'd disappeared. He stopped, gulping cold air into his lungs. He scanned left and right, before deciding to follow the building's rear wall. It ran for about sixty or seventy yards, Namtar suspected she would have had enough time to clear that and double back down the other side of the mill. The first door he passed was secured and locked, the same way the front one had been. Would she really have gone to ground in there, trapping herself like an animal in a cage? He doubted it. He was certain she must have doubled back down the other side of the building and returned to the cottage. Namtar smiled at his own deduction and was about to turn back and head the way he'd come, when he saw the window.
* * *
In the darkness, Lucie waited, sure that the sound of her laboured breathing could be heard from a good half a mile away. She wasn't unfit by a long shot, but swimming was more her thing. Running always made her lungs want to burst, and consequently it was a physical activity she avoided at all costs. Now she wished she'd partaken in it a little more often and conditioned herself. Still, no one ever planned to actually be running for their lives, did they? She held her breath, desperately trying to hear what was happening in the world above her subterranean hidey-hole. She tried not to gasp the halted breath out as the sound of the window being opened echoed through the dilapidated mill. Carefully, she exhaled and drew another much-needed breath, trying to shallow out her breathing as much as she could.
Heavy feet slapped down onto the floor, halted, then began to pace patiently through the building, searching. As if working in alliance with the pursuer, in some attempt to make her give up her position, a spider dropped onto her chin from one of the silky webs above. She couldn't see the creature but she knew what it was, and it was big. Half of her warned her to lay still, this was southern England and although there were a few large species of domestic arachnid, none were dangerous. The other, irrational half screamed at her to escape the bug-ridden hole before it bit her and sucked her brains right out of her head. Screwing her face up in disgust, she felt the agile legs scurry over her lips, they navigated over her nose and tightly closed eyes, brushing her eyelids and making her want to retch, before scuttling across her wet hair. Her new companion drew her attention away from the real threat for a few tense seconds, but with the spider now gone and no doubt planning how he could devour such a large and juicy meal, she heard feet on the concrete once again. Fear coursed through her veins like a paralysing elixir, one that wouldn't allow her to spring from the sawdust pit if a Camel Spider happened to drop onto her face.
He was close, six feet away maybe, now five. The steps drew closer, until those eager shoes almost stepped over the plywood cover, but then they stopped. Lucie waited in despair for the board to be lifted – it was all she could do.
Chapter 28
Sanderson McCormack, or Sandy as his friends called him, sat in the pleasantly cool Tokyo night air. The roof garden bar at the Palace Hotel afforded him a spectacular view over the city, a network of tiny lights sprawled out in every direction like countless twinkling stars. Intermingled with them were toy-sized vehicles, scurrying about like a m
ultitude of self-illuminating bugs, fireflies negotiating a maze that had no end.
A light gust of wind rustled his dark hair and a small shiver carried through his slightly inebriated body. To counter it he took another sip of his gently-warmed saké and instantly felt the liquid chase the chills away. Autumn was well on its way and in a few more weeks the temperature would start to drop, making nights like this a little more uncomfortable without the addition of a heavy jacket. Tonight however, his knitted cream sweater and blue jeans were just enough, with the aid of a little booze, to keep him feeling toasty.
Sandy had been residing at the luxury hotel for three weeks now, studying the efficient way the Japanese had rebuilt the capital's electrical systems and infrastructure. There were no curfews here, not like back in DC. Here in Tokyo life was virtually beating at a regular pulse – no one turned the power off at one AM and then back on at six, which seemed to be the rule for the entire western world; and the local police patrolled the city street, not backed up by the army, like in Washington, New York and many of the European cities. There was a lesson to be learned here for the whole western world, and he was learning it. Once back in DC, he'd have to pen a lengthy report for presentation to the city council and ultimately President Hill himself, on just how Japan had done things so quickly and efficiently.
Placing the warm beverage onto the metal coaster, he lazily thumbed through his passport, his return ticket tucked neatly into its centre pages. The ticket was dated for tomorrow and with a morning flight he really should be heading to bed, or at the very least starting to prepare his report. He shouldn't be drowning his sorrows and attempting to bury the past in saké, which he doubted would be any more effective than any of the poisons he regularly turned to at home. It was a sad fact that at only thirty-three years of age, Sandy now lived only for his job. It was a good job; it had brought him on an extended visit to this magnificent city, in a time when most of the population couldn't even afford a holiday in the next state. But in truth, Sandy's life ended on the day which had changed the modern world for ever. His beloved wife Sarah, whom he'd met in college aged just seventeen and was no doubt the only woman he'd ever love had died – not killed by the Reaper as so many others had been, but in a far crueller manner.