Submissive (22 page)

“You are not doing Gillian any good,” she sighed. “You should go home and rest until we hear something.”

Bruce lit one of the cigarettes and stuffed the pack into his inner vest pocket.

In her cropped pants and black tank top, the warm breeze tossing her hair, Bruce thought Domme Camille looked more vulnerable than when dressed in her regular Leather Wife clothing. And again he thought of Gillian—taken against her will; maybe hurt or worse—and he felt both impatient and angry that this could have been allowed to happen.

“The damned Ur'theriems are supposed to protect the Disciples,” he grumbled. “So much for divine beings.”

Camille frowned uncomfortably, but she didn't respond to the remark. “I'm sure she'll be found, Bruce,” she said.

She was being kind, and he was thankful for her companionship even as he felt the need for action. And as he stood there wondering where to go, where to look, he couldn't dismiss his anger at the Ur'theriems. Archangels, he thought sourly, protectors of Nemi.

Suddenly Bruce knew exactly what had befallen Gillian. The biggest peril to any woman in Nemi: she'd been taken by one of the Dhjinn E'noch. Gillian had told him about the Dhjinn who had spied her while she contemplated in the Temple of Purity just a little while after her official Dedication. Considering the nature of that race, if the Dhjinn had seen her he must have been enraptured. And if so, the Dhjinn surely wouldn't have hesitated to ask the help of any who might be willing to give information about Gillian. Madam's household provided some protection against their intrusion; but Bruce's chalet was as vulnerable as most anywhere else in Nemi. If a pursuing Dhjinn was determined, he would certainly wait out his time until the moment when he could elude detection by the Ur'theriems and infiltrate Nemi long enough to capture the woman in his sights.

Bruce's heart beat swiftly. He was sure that Xaqriel must have already guessed what Bruce now understood. Perhaps he and his brethren were on the tracks of the offending Dhjinn E'noch even now. But Bruce understood something they might not have even guessed—he knew, somehow, who had directed the creature to Gillian.

“Camille, tell Sir Peter to meet me back at the prison,” he said.

Domme Camille looked troubled. “What is it?”

“Just tell him, and make it fast,” Bruce replied. He started to run toward the prison grounds, his fears growing more anxious with each long sprint.

 

Bruce was downing a second beer, contemplating ways of entering Madam's abode unseen to take possession of Gillian, when someone pounded on his front door.

He opened it to the sight of more than half a dozen speared guards. Not even the usually courteous Sir Peter asked him for entrance; they simply shoved him aside and entered. The majordomo remained at Bruce's side, with a spear pointed at his chest, as the others began to ransack the place. Bruce demanded an explanation, and the reply Sir Peter gave knocked the breath from his chest.

When they did not find Gillian, Sir Peter announced they were taking him into custody, just as they had already taken the Warden.

Bruce's thoughts spun and he sat down on the sofa, shaking. But his anger got the better of him soon enough and he told Sir Peter and the rest of his bunglers to go to hell. They said nothing but forced him to his feet. Then he saw Domme Camille standing in the doorway. The Leather Wife was distraught; the understandable accusation in her eyes so different from the self-centered kind he had seen not so long ago in the eyes of the former Domme, Gina.

Suddenly the hairs raised on his arms.

Sir Peter gestured to the door with his spear. “Madam will speak with you before Lord Xaqriel arrives.”

Bruce took an even breath. “Not before you take me to the prison. I think I know who is behind this.”

The majordomo shook his head impatiently. “I've already told you, the girl is not in the Warden's chambers, and he has already been escorted to the household. But just as your friends and associates are questioned, so shall his be. We will find her, Bruce, be assured of that. And if it comes to a forced confession as to her whereabouts, so be it.”

“The Warden is no more part of this than I am,” Bruce replied. There was nothing to back up the suspicion that drummed in his thoughts, but he wasn't going to ignore it or let them pass it off. “Take me to the prison, now!”

Sir Peter regarded him steadily. “Very well. To the prison, after all.”

 

Sir George, one of the prison guards, had met Bruce and Sir Peter at the front entrance and now led them through the solitary hold. It was dark except for the light of George's lantern. Silence pervaded the place as the three of them walked over the brick. The echo of their footfalls sounded unnatural against the walls.

George stopped and lifted the lantern. Its amber light illuminated the door that stood before them.

“There,” he said.

Bruce felt the unease of the other guards who stood watching from out on the staircase landing. His own heart beat unevenly as George unlocked the cell door.

He cleared his throat as the guard pulled it open. Before the lantern light could make its entry Bruce heard laughter from within. He grabbed the lantern and stomped past him, finding under the waning illumination Gina lying on her stomach on a cot, her chin propped in the cradle of her palms. Her beauty would be restored, he knew; the guards had bandaged her nose with gauze and tape, and he knew the prison physician made daily rounds. But that beauty was shallow, more brittle than porcelain. And now she acknowledged his presence with a smirk as cold as her heart.

“Well, Bruce,” she snickered, “have you missed me?”

George and Peter flanked Bruce as he confronted her.

“Tell me where the Disciple Gillian is,” he demanded.

She pursed her lips in that way he had once found sexy. “Lost her? How would I know where your slut is?”

“She's vanished,” he said slowly. “And I think you know what took her. In fact, I think you helped what took her.”

Gina yawned and fluttered her eyelashes as if bored. “Really, idiot? You truly think I found a way out of this hole and summoned something to take your slut? Get real!”

His hands balled into fists and he slammed them down onto the mattress beside her face. She flinched and her lips pressed together so hard they blanched.

“Tell me, bitch! What has happened to her?”

She sat up and backed away from him as far as the mattress allowed and looked at the others innocently. “Please, sirs, is it not enough that I am confined here—must I be this man's scapegoat as well?”

Bruce's patience snapped and he yanked her by her hair back down onto her belly.

“Tell us, Gina! If you have one shred of compassion left in you, tell us where she is!”

He felt George and Peter grab his arms. They forced him away from the cot and shoved him to the doorway.

“Control yourself,” George roared. “She is right. There's no way she could have been involved in this.”

Bruce struggled against the other two men, until Peter pointed his spear at him and George raised his dagger. With a grumble, Bruce exited and Peter followed, while George closed and re-locked the door.

“Think,” Peter said. “That woman couldn't have got out of here to design some revenge against Gillian. I think you should go get some rest, Sir—”

The majordomo's next words were silenced by a cackle nearby. It was so low and horrible it hardly sounded human. Troubled, Peter glanced about and asked the others if they had heard it.

George grimaced. “It's just the voodoo woman,” he said. “She gets a little wild some nights.”

“That other female prisoner?” Bruce asked. “The one suspected of summoning evil spirits against Nemian women?”

George nodded. “Yes.”

Peter sighed as if anticipating Bruce's next question. “Gillian isn't here, Bruce. The prison has already been thoroughly checked.”

Bruce ignored him. “Which door?”

But George shrugged and pointed to a certain door. “Bitch is in there, awaiting the Ur'theriem court to take her back to Earth. There's no chance of rehabilitation for that one.”

Bruce snatched the lantern and ran to the door. Peter and George followed and watched as he threw up the bolt of the panel, slid it open, and peered inside. A sickly light flickered from inside the cell.

George frowned. “None of these prisoners are allowed candles!”

Bruce stood aside. “Open it.”

George jabbed a key into the lock and turned it. He rushed in, with Peter following and Bruce at his heels.

In the center of the floor the woman sat, wide-shouldered and crowned with a dirty mop of brownish ringlets. She was huddled over a hollowed brick she had managed to pry from the wall. In the hollow a shred of her dress and bedding from the cot's mattress were burning. Bruce saw two minute pieces of flint lying on the floor beside her.

“What goes on here?” George demanded.

She looked up at them, and her face was disfigured by an insane grin. But she did not speak and turned her eyes back to the brick.

George knelt and quickly drew something out of the fire. He tossed it from hand to hand until it cooled, then held it out and inspected it.

A doll, fashioned of some hardened putty. It was blackened from the fire, but as George turned it over Bruce saw it was not one sculpted figure, but two.

“May I?”

George handed it to him. Bruce turned the figure over in his hands and examined it. One of the dolls had been constructed of raw materials: hair of straw and tiny green stones for eyes, coarse thread for a mouth, smooth stones for breasts, blood for the outline of the vagina, breasts, and buttocks. It was the other figure fused by the fire to the putty doll that sent a bolt of nauseous horror through Bruce's stomach.

The figure was sewn up within the skin of an albino toad. There were dusty markings of ash and blood over the crudely sculpted flesh, traced in a way as to resemble scales.

“My god,” Peter said under his breath, “it looks like one of those damned Dhjinn E'nochs!”

Bruce's breath quickened. He turned the thing over in his hand and stroked the smoking straw hair of the putty doll. His legs felt weak, and for the first time in his life he wished he could say he had been wrong about something. How he wished that the Warden had taken Gillian, and that this thing was nothing more than a madwoman's toy.

But when the weird prisoner looked at him again he saw the madness was diminishing, and behind the madness glowed vainglorious contempt. Her thin lips turned up in a smile of fathomless mockery. A mockery not only of the cell that confined her and the guards who watched over it, but of all that Nemi stood for, and the very Disciples her captors were avowed to defend.

 

Gillian's sighs were crushed beneath a ravenous mouth. Its lips were smooth and hard; its taste could only be described as scalding virility. The large hands that stroked her limbs and combed eagerly through her hair were scorchingly hot. Instinctively, Gillian sensed the fevered force that motivated them, even though it was alien and cryptic to her understanding. She opened her eyes and beheld the cheek of the face of he who kissed her. Perspiration dewed his marbled, stonelike features. His great, sinewy body molded over her and emanated the oddest musk—at once virile and tinged with an odor reminiscent of flame-singed bricks. His hands explored her breasts and thighs. Roughly, adeptly, he massaged her sex. He spread Gillian's thighs and lightly touched her anus, sending a bolt of blushing fire up her spine. The caresses prompted her passion, and soon her hips raised, her wet orifice throbbing in shameless pleading.

Lost in sensation, Gillian welcomed the kissing mouth and touched the lithe, naked arms and back. The texture of his skin was like satiny scales. His loins pressed against her stomach, and she knew a moment's terror at the size of the manhood that loomed above her pubis. Then, as he lifted her buttocks so that she arched toward him, her panic mingled with her passion. Her legs thrashed wildly, and her fists beat into his hard, hard chest. He leaned over her carefully, pinning her wrists down, and with his legs, unfolded her resisting thighs. A droplet of his sweat fell upon her brow as his cock plunged into her.

He filled her utterly. His pelvis thrust hard, driving her hips into the solid surface beneath her. Her moan echoed in her ears, and still he pumped her. Again and again he prompted her to an orgasm, until her whole womanhood shuddered with ecstasy and her mind knew nothing but the coursing tides of sensation.

Through half-closed lids she saw his clenched jaw and she felt his own pleasure tiding. Then she felt him tense as if deliberately holding off his orgasm, but he continued to thrust in and out of her at a slow pace, until, with a little shriek, she climaxed again.

As the spasms coursed through her, Gillian saw how flushed his strange skin was now, red as a ruby. A strange, dry mist escaped his finely molded lips. A sound permeated the mist: guttural, articulately spoken words that she felt as they spilled forth. They pervaded the air, creating an aura that pulsated with a fiery rapture. The inflections of each pealed syllable singed Gillian's flesh. With a last echoed sigh from his throat, the aura suddenly burst apart and a culminated passion ripped through infinity.