by Max Hardy
Saul’s old, furrowed lips curled sardonically. ‘More incredible than believing a man can be crucified, buried, then rise from the dead and turn into a holy ghost. The facts are easy. We have been selectively bred and genetically modified. It’s the belief and the unwavering conviction in their faith that is hard to grasp. But then that is faith for you.’
‘So what’s next John. At what point does the world you are descending into consume you. At what point do you become killers too, if you haven’t already. We found a part of Rebecca’s fingernail in Darrie’s ripped open heart.’ Strange queried, scrunching up the plastic bag that had the bread in and putting it into his inside pocket, taking something else out at the same time, hiding it in his hands.
‘We continue until we find out why. That is the path we must walk down. For Jacob’s sake, we need to understand what they have done to make us. If that path leads us to murder, well, so be it. Perhaps with your help, we might not get totally consumed.’ Saul answered.
‘And how can I help?’ Strange asked.
‘You already are. You are here, you have a cordon around the town, and you are ready to spring into action when we need you. You aren’t here by chance Jerry. You are here because we wanted you here. You are going to the apartment in a moment because we want you to go there. What is inside the apartment is there because we want you to find it. We also know who the sixth member of the Unas cult is. Keep an eye on PNC later today, you might see some interesting information miraculously appear on there about him.’ Saul answered, turning side on and looking directly toward Strange. ‘If we don’t become murderers today, there is a very real chance we will be murdered. I want you to know that you have been an invaluable friend to me, to Sarah and to Jacob. I will never be able to repay the kindness that you showed us, especially the time you spent here, on this bench, sitting feeding the ducks with Jacob.’
Strange turned in as well, his eyes glistening with the dew of sorrow as he took in Saul’s honest, sincere, saddened gaze. He opened his hands, Ian Bear springing from a crushed ball to a full teddy in a second. Strange reached over and handed him to Saul. Saul took the bear willingly, Strange holding his hand empathetically for a split second. ‘The next time you see Jacob, give him his bear back and let him know, that if he keeps Ian Bear close, Uncle Jerry will be there for him too.’
Chapter 32
Eve’s slender, naked left leg sprang out from her midriff, where she had curled it up, at right angles from her standing, bare right leg. With the force of her whole body behind it, the foot slammed into Caldwell’s stomach. He stumbled backwards, knees buckling as they banged into a whipping bench, his body toppling back over, his hands scrambling for grip on the leather top, trying to stop himself hitting the floor. He rolled to the right, just as Eve smacked a fist into the bench where his head had been a second earlier. He then rolled again and sprung up on his knees, and jumped beyond an upturned inversion rack, spinning around and angling the body bench toward Eve, using it as a barrier between them. Eve’s firm, naked body danced agitatedly on tip-toes, her firm breasts jiggling under the incessant, adrenaline fuelled movement.
‘Nice to see you get a rise out of the violence.’ Eve smirked, looking at Caldwell’s naked, toned torso, then down to his lengthening semi erection.
‘I didn’t quite think that was what you meant when you said let’s play.’ Caldwell countered, still catching his breath from the stomach kick.
‘Are you complaining? I’m here because I thought you liked dominant women.’ Eve teased as she flitted lightly from side to side, jabbing her shoulder in intermittently to intimidate Caldwell. She started to circle a stretching rack to one side of him, then swiftly jumped on top of it, crouching down, her legs akimbo, with the luscious pinkness of her open vagina lips staring enticingly toward him.
‘Not complaining at all.’ Caldwell responded in a rumbling tone, his gaze devouring her glistening lady garden, ‘Just wondering who told you I like dominant women.’ he finished.
‘Ah, that would be telling. Let’s just say a mutual friend. If you want to know more than that, you’ll have to beat me. If you want to beat me, you’ll have to catch me. If you want to catch me, you’ll have to stop me beating you.’ On the last word, she leapt from the bench into the air, angling her feet toward the edge of the body bench on the inversion rack, landing full on it, causing the opposite end in Caldwell’s hands to shoot up on the pivot and catch him in the chest, throwing him backwards, where he landed on his backside on the black marble floor, scrabbling back immediately to the mirrored wall behind him. Eve landed gracefully, perfectly balanced on the floor, sidestepping the inversion rack as she cautiously approached Caldwell, her dazzling emerald eyes not leaving his calculating gaze: which couldn’t resist ogling the curves and contours of her natural beauty.
‘Perhaps I don’t want you to stop beating me. Perhaps I deserve it.’ Caldwell answered, his chest visibly heaving under the exertion and excitement, his penis now fully erect and tickling his belly button.
‘Oh you deserve it. For every single depravity you have performed on unwilling, unwitting women, you absolutely deserve it.’ Eve seethed, her body swaying hypnotically, drawing his gaze into her ululating curves. For a moment his whole being was lost in the rhythm of her mesmerising skin, but then his mind registered the underlying animosity in her sibilant words. Eve’s left foot had been gently rising while her body writhed, and was at knee height, angled toward Caldwell’s genitals, his bollocks fully exposed, her intended target. Her foot dropped, Caldwell’s eyes now focused on it, and just as it passed his raised, open knees, he clamped them shut tightly around her calf, then thrust his body to the left, pulling Eve off balance in the process. Her right side thudded into the floor, her head jolting on landing and banging into the floor as well, dazing her momentarily. Long enough for Caldwell to grab a manacle from a rack beside him and snap it onto her flailing wrist, fastening the other end to a nearby wrought iron pillory, which was bolted to the floor. Eve scrambled to her knees and lashed out her free arm, directing it straight at Caldwell’s head, the fingers talon elongated, nails primed to scratch. Caldwell pulled his head back, but not quite in time, the nails raking across his left cheek.
Eve spun around and stood, dragging the manacle up the frame of the pillory, getting ready for a retaliatory strike, looking towards Caldwell’s face to see what damage her razor nails had inflicted. Caldwell stood slowly, just out of her reach, his head bowed down, taking in her sweating, heaving body from foot, all the way up to her defiant face, where the defiant expression turned confused as she saw the impact of her nails. There wasn’t any blood. There were rips in the skin, flaps of it hanging loosely on his cheek, but no blood.
‘Gabriel has taught you well. You are a strong dominant woman who knows how to use her body and mind to gain control. The verbal foreplay earlier was particularly enlightening. He has evolved his techniques. But there is one thing, perhaps, that he neglected to tell you.’ Caldwell started, looking directly into Eve’s resolute glare, which was at odds with the obvious confusion she was trying to hide in her eyes. He started to pick away at the loose bits of skin on his cheek, revealing real skin below the prosthetic over layer.
‘And what would that one thing be?’ Eve asked sternly, a realisation forming on her face, entering her tensed and expectant body, making it even more alert, making her step back a few paces, in line with the pillory rather than in front of it.
Caldwell wriggled his fingers inside the hole in the prosthetic skin on his cheek and forced them inside, ripping it along the line of his nose, right the way to his other cheek. He pulled the bottom half of the flap firstly off his chin, then secondly up over his eyes and forehead, revealing the wry, brooding smile and intensely searing eyes of Adam. ‘Probably the most important thing he should have told you, if he suspected for one minute it was me you were trying to play. Gabriel and I grew up together. I taught him everything about mental and physical manipulation that he
knows. From the creative ways I have seen him show his disciples how to murder, he has definitely evolved them, but the basics will always remain the same. I’m a man, expose your genitalia at me and I will be mesmerised by it. Sashay your body towards me, with seductive, fuck me eyes, and I am bound to be ensnared in your hypnotic, nymphotic dance. On any other man, who wasn’t expecting it, it would have worked, and they would now be trussed up, being tortured and maimed by your exquisite, sensual, murderous hands. Now the opposite is going to happen, which is a shame, because I adore your body and your mind, you are exactly the same as your sisters.’
‘Hardly sisters. Genetic freaks of your family’s deranged experimentation. A misogynists mannequins, to be used and abused, played and paraded, ceremoniously sacrificed for a tin pot sham of a hollow, empty religion. They were weak to be taken in by a murdering misogynistic monster like you.’ Eve seethed through gritted teeth, slowly edging her way around the frame of the pillory, positioning it between herself and Adam.
Adam laughed, reaching out to the whip rack beside him and grabbing a cat of nine tails, flicking it, a loud crack echoing around the spacious dungeon. ‘Poor, deranged little Eve, believing Gabriel and his God complex. You are part of this family. He is part of this family. We are all part of this family’s deranged experimentation. We are all part of a greater journey. Let me enlighten you.’
Adam raised the whip and with a ferocious glint in his eye, flicked it around the frame of the pillory, expertly sending the tails sailing toward her neck. Eve tried to step back and duck at the same time, but Adam’s flick had pre-empted the movement and the tails circled her neck in an instant, constricting it sharply as he tugged on the handle in his hand firmly, pulling Eve’s head directly into the cross bar of the pillory, stunning her. With the other free hand, he quickly raised the cross bar and forced her neck into the head hole, slamming the bar shut.
‘Bastard’ Eve screamed, flailing her free arm, trying to thump his ribs. He stepped back a fraction, her furious fist flying through thin air.
‘Did Gabriel ever tell you why the torture and the sex together are so important? Did he explain why the torture heightens the sexual act? You are trapped now, your mind knows that I am going to inflict pain on your body, your cunt is dripping, your nipples are erect and tingling and the fear and panic that are exploding in your stomach are riding on a wave of sexual excitement that are all vying to open up every one of the synapses in all three of your nervous systems. When that happens, when your body is being exposed to the two most intense emotions that a human can endure, orgasm and pain, then you are open. Open to receive the spirit of whatever God you happen to believe in. Open to the rapture.’ Adam relays, then raises a fist and punches Eve squarely in the nose, breaking it instantly, the room filling with her excruciating, echoing scream.
‘Tell me, how does that excite you? I can see the areolas of your nipples tightening and turning purple and that tells me the sexual endorphins are kicking in even more.’ Adam asked, slowly circling around the pillory, around behind her, his own excitement obvious in the throbbing of his bulbous penis. ‘It is the animal in us and the instinct baked into our very DNA.’
Eve raised her head, the skin on the brow of her nose ripped, the bone underneath visible. Blood poured from the wound, joining two other tributaries from her nostrils, the river flowing down over her open lips, onto an outstretched tongue licking it in. ‘Oh, I am feeling just sensational. My whole body is tingling in heightened euphoria, and you are quite right, my breasts are throbbing, my juices are bubbling and my little clit is sizzling. I know exactly what the relationship is between the two. What you need to understand is that I have learned to control the animal. Gabriel has learned to control the animal. Have you, given there is a dead, dismembered woman sitting behind that wall? Or are you still succumbing to it?’ Eve responded provocatively, tilting her head to try and see Adam, who was now standing directly behind her.
‘You think she died because I couldn’t control myself? She died so that I could find Gabriel. She died so I could infiltrate the Cult of Unas and find out what warped path Gabriel had set them on. She died, so that you would end up here.’ Adam answered, picking up a spanking paddle from one of the nearby equipment racks and slapping it off his hand, the resulting sound full of intimidation.
‘Finding Gabriel or me didn’t require the death of a single innocent person. Like the low life men you have become associated with, it was all about personal desire, personal gratification, personal misogyny, in the self-fulfilling belief that you serve a higher purpose.’ Eve retorted, her body tensing excitedly, anticipating the slap that was coming.
Adam smirked, nodding his head quietly, then began to raise the paddle, stopping in mid air as out the corner of his eye, in the mirrors, he saw the reflection of a gun barrel snaking through the open door to the dungeon.
A gun barrel followed by a booming order. ‘Lay one more finger on her, and I’ll blow your fucking brains out.’
Chapter 33
The languid, lapping river grew forceful and intense where it weaved its way between the moss covered stepping stones that traversed its width. Strange stepped onto the first one at the right of the river, just as Cruickshank stepped onto the first one on the left. In tandem, they stepped from stone to stone until they stood facing each other, the roar of the constricted water flowing between the stones bubbling up to their ears.
‘Well?’ Cruickshank queried, looking up to Strange’s reflective gaze with a worried sternness.
‘He was there. He wanted to talk and bring us up to speed with what they know.’ Strange answered, his eyes not leaving Cruickshank’s.
‘Well, I could hear a mumbled conversation through your mic, but overriding that was the bloody quacking ducks. But I guess that’s why he asked you to take the bread, and if the ducks weren’t quacking, he wouldn’t have talked to you?’ she said, a glimmer of concern entering her stern countenance. ‘How was he?’
Strange’s lips started to quiver, a welling emotion overcoming him as the reality of Saul’s situation shivered through his body. ‘Honestly, he is getting ready to die. He is forcing this to a conclusion and he is prepared for an outcome where he is killed if that is what it takes. We are here because he wants us here. We are here because at some point this evening, he will want our help. He has left something in the apartment for us.’
Cruickshank reached out her hands and took hold of his across the water that divided them, squeezing them tightly for a moment before letting go, the sternness suddenly returning. ‘I trust you Jerry. But I will state this once again, I do not trust Saul. I feel for you, not for him, so let’s get beyond the emotion quickly, and pick through the facts you have gleaned from him. That was the overriding reason for meeting him, so let us now focus on that. And hopefully it goes without saying, not a word to anyone about what we have just done. Come on, lets go and see what scraps of evidence he’s deigned to furnish us with.’ she finished sarcastically, spinning around on the last words and heading back across the stones.
Strange followed, speaking, ‘Trust me, not a word, and thank you for trusting me. I realise what a risk you are taking.’
‘It’s as you said Strange, we can be the patsies being played, which we both have been over the past few weeks, or we can start to play too. Has he found out anything about Gabriel?’ Cruickshank asked as she stepped off the stones and back onto the bank, heading up a path towards the apartments.
‘Well, he knows who the sixth member of the cult is and he is expecting Gabriel and Eve to be paying them a visit imminently. We have to keep an eye out on PNC for some info relating to him.’ Strange offered as they approached a silver people carrier surrounded by police cordon tape, two forensics officers in PPE overalls inside examining it.
‘How on earth is anything new going to turn up on PNC? I hope his access has been revoked!’ Cruickshank admonished sternly as she nodded towards the officers, passed them by and headed for an open door, t
hen walked into the apartment, Strange following.
‘Hadn’t even crossed our minds Gaynor.’ Strange retorted sarcastically, rolling his eyes incredulously.
Trentor was in the hallway talking to Harris, and looked up with a slight grimace of concern when he saw Cruickshank striding in.
‘Have we found anything Trentor?’ Cruickshank demanded, heading directly past him to the open study door behind him, seeing the profusion of white PPE overalls moving about inside.
‘Yes Ma’am, I’ve just been talking to Harris about it. There’s a monitor set up in there that has a live feed from our Incident room up in Edinburgh on it.’ Trentor imparted, scurrying after Cruickshank and pointing toward the study table where a forensic officer was dusting the surface for fingerprints.
Cruickshank looked at the screen, tilting her head as she studied the angles of the visible room furnishings, deep in thought. Strange joined her, looking over her shoulder, tilting his head the same way. ‘The camera must be above the main entrance to the room.’ he suggested. ‘What’s above the door?’ he said out loud, while he bent into Cruickshank’s ear and whispered quickly, ‘This could be what he’s left us, a pointer as to how he knows what we know.’
Cruickshank nodded gently. ‘Trentor, there’s a plaque above that door with the station motto on. Give the duty sergeant a call and get someone to check it out. Somehow it must be connected to the internet. That might tell us something.’ she ordered. She caught a reflection of the walls behind her in the monitor, seeing hierarchical boxes. She turned and walked toward the family tree on the whiteboards.
‘Ian, are tech forensics nearby to check out the computer? Where’s Mick by the way?’ Strange asked Harris, who had just entered the room.
‘Young Reynolds is on his way Sir, he’ll be here in about half an hour. Munro got a call and headed off up to the Institute. Something about an image on the CCTV up there.’