The Vestal's Steward

by Ailx Nichols

  It was at that precise moment that a group of four officers walked in, with a handcuffed Timm in their midst.

  Smiling, Timm bowed his head. “My sirs, it’s a pleasure to see you again!”

  Some of the men greeted him, but most averted their eyes.

  Iyatt’s expression darkened. If Timm had been caught snooping around Ultek’s house, that would make the police chief suspicious. He might double the number of guards posted around it.

  How many would be too many for his commando of three to take on?

  “What has he done?” a rank-and-filer asked.

  “Smuggling level-two tech,” one of the officers answered.

  Iyatt’s shoulders slackened with relief—Timm was being taken into custody for smuggling. That explained why there were no indications he’d resisted arrest. Judging by his unruffled appearance and the still hidden wings, he hadn’t tried to fight or fly away. Either course of action would’ve blown his cover.

  A routine arrest simply wasn’t worth it.

  The cops arrested smugglers from time to time to extort little extras, not to lock them up. Quite a few present here had met Timm before. They’d sought him out and purchased items from him.

  He wouldn’t be taken to the Iltaqa prison or put in a cell at the police station. They’d keep him in an office until he sweet-talked and bribed his way out. He’d done it before.

  Timm started working on his release right there. “Just for your information, officers, Ittroise will soon ship a new commlet model to all the planets where level-two tech is legal.”

  “What can it do?” several men asked. “How is it better than the previous one?”

  Timm described the new features and promised to get his hands on the commlet within weeks.

  “You better make good on that promise, Itkis,” the captain said, advancing toward the cyborg.

  Timm feigned affront. “Have I ever let you down, Captain?”

  “No.” The captain dangled a set of keys in front of Timm’s face. “But. I need something special this time.”

  “Listening.”

  “My little girl’s best friend came back from a family visit to Norbal with a doll that can walk and talk. Ever since my daughter saw that doll, she’s been giving us hell at home. It’s become an obsession. She drives us crazy.”

  “Put yourself in her shoes, captain!” Timm gave him a crooked smile. “If I were a little girl and I found out that walking, talking dolls were real, I’d be obsessed, too.”

  “I could go after her friend’s parents for possession of illicit level-two tech or—”

  “Or you could get your little girl a walking, talking doll.” Timm grinned. “Consider it done.”

  The captain moved to unlock Timm’s handcuffs when his commlet pinged. He answered it. Voqras’s voice in the device, as he yelled at the captain, was so loud everyone in the room could hear what he was saying.

  “Itkis stays put, you idiot! I thought my orders were clear. Take him to the high-security cell!”

  How did he know to call now? Iyatt wondered. Stupid me! Voqras must’ve bugged the police station.

  “The man is harmless, Captain Voqras,” the police captain said, knitting his eyebrows in consternation. “Why do you want him in high security?”

  “Why? Why? I’ll tell you why!” Voqras’s voice rose a few pitches before dropping back to normal. “I’ve been thinking about Sebi’s messages from beyond, the ones he’d recorded before he got killed. How did he do that? And who’s been sending them to people’s commlets after his death?”

  “Could be a Teteum agent,” the captain said, dropping the keys into his pocket.

  Clearly, he wasn’t going to disobey Voqras, even if the hive cyborg wasn’t his superior, strictly speaking.

  The cops around Timm pulled the smuggler away.

  “Yes, copy that,” the captain said into the commlet. “We’ll take him to high security.”

  And just like that, Timm’s arrest had become political. He wasn’t being released tonight and he wasn’t coming to Ultek’s house.

  With everyone’s attention on Timm, Iyatt slipped from the room and from the building.

  Rhori and Lippin were waiting for him outside the gate. As he strode toward them, they waved the goggles Lippin had procured from the supply room. Iyatt couldn’t see their expressions in the dark, but he would bet the pair of them looked very pleased with themselves.

  Did they understand the risk they were taking? Maybe not.

  Almost ten years his junior, Rhori and Lippin might be viewing this endeavor as an adventure. In their minds, they probably downplayed the danger they’d be facing. It was his duty to make sure they knew what they were getting into. He had to impress upon them that their chances of surviving tonight were not so good.

  “Timm was arrested,” he said. “Without him, this raid looks like a suicide mission. You don’t have to—”

  “We’re still in.” Rhori glanced at Lippin who bobbed his head.

  Iyatt stared at his friends. They stared back.

  He gave them a brief, single nod.

  A moment later, Lippin, Rhori and Iyatt headed for Timm’s motor vehicle.

  Twenty-Three

  The basement door opened and Chief Ultek burst in with a face like thunder.

  The guards greeted him.

  “Everything all right, sir?” Kanwo asked.

  Without answering, Ultek marched straight to Haysi and spent a long moment surveying her. “What number should we assign her?” He turned to Kanwo. “You’re the one keeping count, so tell me.”

  “Twenty-two, sir.”

  Ultek focused his attention on Haysi again. “There’s no more Haysimina, sweetass. Understand? From now on, you’re Twenty-Two.”

  Why Twenty-Two? she wondered absently. There were only a dozen women in the cage. Fifteen, at most. What had happened to the numbers in between?

  “Would you like Twenty-Two prepped in any special way, sir?” Kanwo asked.

  Ultek eyed her up and down.

  There was a long silence.

  Kanwo cleared his throat. “Sir?”

  “I think I want to watch her dance in her pretty costume one last time before we get her collared and leathered up,” Ultek finally said. “Get her dancer dress.”

  The guards shuffled toward each other and exchanged whispered words.

  “We don’t have it,” Kanwo said. “Your men handed her to us like this.”

  His face turning crimson, Ultek tossed his head back and shook his fists. “Useless wormhole spawns, all of you! I told them to grab her costume! I—urrrgh!”

  Haysi watched him with a calm that surprised her. Not that she didn’t dread what was to come. But she didn’t want this monster to sense it. Her contrarian spirit had smothered her fear. At least for now.

  “I’m so mad, someone’s going to die tonight,” Ultek growled before glancing at Haysi. “Not you. At least, not on purpose. You’re still fresh and yummy, sweetass. You have work to do before you’re ready for Otherworld.”

  “If you feel like strangling a girl to death tonight, sir, may I suggest this one?” Kanwo pointed out the dark-haired woman who’d threatened to kill him earlier. “She’s been screaming too much of late.”

  The basement door swung open and a woman in her forties strode in.

  “Yvory?!” Ultek turned toward her, his jaw dropping. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Yvory… Haysi didn’t have a clue who the woman was. Ultek’s wife? His assistant? The housekeeper?

  The women in the cage stirred, moving closer. Haysi heard some of them say, “Dame Ultek.”

  “Itching to kill someone, huh?” Yvory halted a few steps from Ultek. “Did Governor Boggond dress you down for letting Achlins Ghaw get away?”

  “Shut up!” Ultek yelled.

  Kanwo and the other two guards looked from Ultek to Yvory, visibly ill at ease and unsure what to do.

  “Or did Lord Boggond rebuke you in front o
f others, like he’d done when you bungled Commander Heidd’s assassination?” Yvory asked. “Was Voqras there, too? Did he humiliate you again?”

  “We’ll talk later, bitch,” Ultek hissed. “I’m too mad now to even look at you.”

  “I know you’re too mad tonight, darling.” Yvory glanced up over her shoulder. “That explains your carelessness… leaving the door to the basement unlocked.”

  “For hell’s sake, get your fat ass out of here!”

  She didn’t move.

  “Didn’t I tell you the basement was out of bounds?” Ultek was screaming now. “Didn’t I warn you to never come down here?”

  “You did,” Yvory said.

  Ultek turned to Kanwo. “Take her to her room and tie her to a chair. I’ll decide on her punishment later.”

  “Everyone’s here, my dame!” someone called from the top of the staircase. “Hang on, we’re coming down!”

  Two maids, a man with a cook’s apron and a man dressed as a butler erupted into the basement, pulling the heavy door shut behind them. The maids were armed with mops. The cook held an impressive butcher’s knife. The butler wielded an ax.

  “A revolt?” Ultek surveyed his wife. “Really? Have you thought about the consequences? Have you thought about your children?”

  “Our children,” she said.

  Ultek sniggered. “Except, you love them more than I do, sweetheart.” He pointed to the servants. “Even they love them more than I do.”

  Kanwo stepped forward, pulling his gun. “Say the word, sir, and I’ll shoot the servants.”

  The other two guards put their hands on their holsters and widened their stances.

  A loud pop made Haysi jump. It was followed by another one. To her astonishment, it hadn’t been any of the guards firing his weapon. It had been Yvory.

  She held a small pistol in her trembling hands.

  Ultek stared in horror at his left shoulder and his thigh, where she’d put bullets through, as blossoms of blood appeared on his clothes and grew.

  Shouting a war cry, the butler and the cook launched themselves at the guards.

  More shots were fired. Haysi saw one of the guards fall, grabbing his stomach and gurgling blood.

  One of the maids sank to the floor. She clutched the gushing wound in her side. Dropping his knife, the cook kneeled next to her and tried to stop the bleeding. A guard shot him point blank from behind.

  The butler swung his ax and buried it in the guard’s neck. The two collapsed to the ground at the same time.

  Kanwo had shot the butler in the head.

  The second maid hit him with her mop, sloshing soapy water into his face. While he spat out and rubbed his eyes, Yvory went up to him and emptied her pistol into his legs and shoulders. Kanwo fell to his knees and on his side. He tried to lift his gun, but the maid kicked it from his weakened grip.

  Sobbing, she crouched over the other maid, then the butler, and finally the cook. She shook them, slapped their cheeks and begged them not to die.

  Yvory took their pulse. “They’re gone, Corrie. There’s nothing we can do for them now.”

  “Noooo!” the maid wailed.

  The two women hugged, weeping.

  “Please, my dame, open the cage! Let us out!” The dark-haired screamer that Kanwo had wanted dead rattled the metal mesh. “Please!”

  Other women’s voices joined her.

  Haysi called for her, too, but Yvory didn’t seem to hear her.

  Wiping her tears, Yvory unfastened a bunch of keys from her writhing husband’s belt and went to the cage.

  When she unlocked the door, over a dozen women walked out. Some of them jubilated and hugged each other. Others were so dazed they didn’t seem to comprehend what had just happened.

  “You’re going home to your loved ones tonight,” Yvory said to them. “But first…” She took in their obscene costumes and turned to Corrie. “Fetch my clothes, everything you can find. They can’t leave the house like this.”

  Corrie bolted upstairs.

  “Hello! I’m here!” Haysi called again, but her voice was drowned in the insults the women were shouting at the injured Ultek and Kanwo as they kicked, shoved, and struck the pair. One attempted to claw Kanwo’s eyes out.

  “Wait!” Yvory yelled. “You can do what you want to my husband, but this man… he’s just a guard. It’s wrong to kill him.”

  “He deserves to die,” a redhead bit out.

  “How so?”

  “Two women died after a gang rape three months ago, Urreka and Nadawi.” The redhead’s eyes began to tear. “Nadawi…” She looked away, choking on her sobs.

  “Nadawi had massive internal bleeding,” Screamer said. “Her organs had been reduced to pulp.”

  Yvory hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms.

  Corrie arrived with the clothes, and the girls began to put them on.

  The redhead, who’d finished dressing first, shoved Kanwo again.

  He rolled onto his back.

  “You know what happened to Urreka, Dame Ultek?” Hunkering down, the redhead slammed a fist into Kanwo’s jaw. “She was the oldest here, a mother of four. She died because this man had punched her head repeatedly with his fists.”

  “Why?” Yvory asked as Kanwo groaned in pain.

  “Because he felt like it,” the redhead said.

  “Please, I didn’t mean to kill her,” Kanwo croaked. “You must understand… I was very drunk. We all were.”

  “Did my husband put a gun to your head and say he’d shoot you if you didn’t hit her?” Yvory asked him.

  He glanced at Ultek convulsing on the floor and at the sneering women. “No.”

  “Sounds like he wasn’t under duress,” Yvory said to the redhead, the steel in her voice chilling the blood Haysi’s veins.

  “You must believe me, Dame Ultek!” Kanwo slithered closer to her feet and attempted to kiss them. “I regret that incident so much! I’ve been regretting it every day since then.”

  She pushed him away.

  He glanced at the redhead’s face before turning to Dame Ultek again. “I’ve even thought of suicide!”

  “You poor thing.” Yvory’s lips twisted with disgust. “Guess what? I’ve been thinking of killing myself every day for ten years now. The only reason I’m alive is my children.”

  “They must be the same age as Urreka’s children,” the redhead said.

  Yvory jerked her chin up. “He’s all yours.”

  A half dozen women, most of them dressed in Yvory’s clothes now, pinned Kanwo to the ground and poured all the horror they’d endured at his hands into the blows they dealt him.

  A short time later, Kanwo stopped trying to protect his head and stomach. He lay sprawled, not making a sound as punches and kicks jerked his body. His eyes were wide open. He was dead.

  Yvory went to Ultek, who looked like he’d passed out, and began to slap his face. “Wake up, you scumbag! Wake up, wake up!”

  He opened his eyes and looked around, befuddled. “What… What in the stinky pit is going on?”

  Four pairs of female hands lifted him up and leaned him against the wall.

  “Before I discovered your secret, I thought you got off with harlots,” Yvory said. “When I found out the truth, it was so shocking that for the longest time, I refused to believe it. Why, Zorom? Why?”

  “Harlots don’t resist.” He spat out blood and gave his wife a hard stare. “And when they do, they fake their resistance, because they know the client wants them to.”

  She drew in a slow breath as if to calm herself and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

  “I like them young and pretty, you see, like you were a long time ago. I like them untouched, if possible.” Ultek sneered. “And definitely unwilling.”

  She opened her eyes.

  “Do you want to be the first one to have a go at him?” a dark-haired woman asked Yvory. “I don’t mind. But I want to be the last one.”

  Her face contorting, Yvory turned he
r back to Ultek. “Do what you want to him.”

  One of the women strode to a closet, opened it, and began tossing sex toys, whips, and paddles to the others.

  Ultek’s eyes bugged out as he realized what his “girls” planned to do to him.

  “You dirty whores, you won’t dare!” he bellowed. “You’ll hang for it!”

  Grabbing various items, they surrounded him.

  “Someone help me!” he screamed.

  The next quarter of an hour felt utterly unreal.

  Yvory and Corrie stood in the corner of the room, wincing. The dark-haired woman, the redhead and the other women stripped Ultek and used the items from the closet on him in increasingly cruel ways. He screamed and begged for mercy. They had none for him.

  Nor did his wife.

  When the dark-haired woman squatted next to his crotch with the cook’s knife in her hand, his eyes widened with horror. “Noooo!”

  “Yes, sweetass,” she said. “Try to relax and enjoy it.”

  Haysi could almost hear Ultek saying those exact words to the woman on more than one occasion.

  She averted her gaze.

  That was when Yvory finally saw her. Ignoring her husband’s wild shrieks, she scurried to Haysi. “I’m so sorry!”

  She found the right key and unlocked her shackles.

  Haysi rubbed her sore wrists. “That’s all right.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Yvory gave her a look full of sympathy. “I don’t know how I didn’t spot you earlier!”

  A wry laugh escaped Haysi’s lips. “You were a little busy.”

  Yvory snorted even as her eyes remained sad.

  It occurred to Haysi that the woman who’d just freed her and risked her life tonight to help other women was one of those “matrons” she hated. Iyatt had been right. They weren’t all evil.

  Haysi threw her arms around Yvory. “Thank you!”

  When they stepped away from each other, the older woman turned to Ultek who was unconscious once again.

  The redhead loomed over him, holding the butler’s ax.

  But she didn’t have time to swing it.

  The door to the basement crashed down and two huge men in black armor with enormous guns pointing forward burst in.