Odeon watched in revolted fascination as his Joanie stripped skin, with
precise delicacy, from the screaming renegade's hands. He'd expected
her to go after the plaguer's manhood in retaliation for what had been
done to her, but--except for a couple of times he'd been lying so
obviously it was an insult--she had left that alone.
When she finished her subject's hands, Cortin stepped back to study
him. She had discovered quickly that his personal horrors included
being skinned alive, so that had become her primary tactic against him.
It was slow--enjoyably so, for her--and it was working very nicely
indeed. "Have you decided to cooperate yet?"
"Damn you, Bitch!" The renegade tried to spit at her, without success.
"Do your damndest--you won't get nothin' from me!"
Cortin smiled. He was still defiant, true, but Illyanov agreed with
her assessment that he was the type who would remain defiant until he
broke abruptly, and the same sense that told her when he was lying now
told her he was close to that abrupt break. Give him the proper
physical and psychological stimuli, and he should go from defiance to
surrender in seconds.
She had already planned what to do, a continuation of her primary
tactic--but a little bit of insurance wouldn't hurt. She turned to the
other two. "Would either of you gentlemen care to avail yourselves of
our guest while he still has enough spirit to be interesting? I fear I
am being greedy, keeping him to myself."
Illyanov smiled, bowing to her. She hadn't been avoiding an extremely
useful technique, as he had been half afraid she was, because it had
been done to her; she had merely postponed it until the optimum time.
"It is generous of you to share, Inquisitor. It has been some time
since I have had the opportunity to indulge myself in another's
subject. I will not interrupt your work?"
Both ignored the renegade's protests and insults as Cortin returned the
bow. "Not at all--your enjoyment of him should make the removal of his
genital skin even more effective." And enjoyable . . . "Particularly
if you can make him move enough that it is he who pulls himself free of
it."
"That should pose no particular difficulty."
If it hadn't been his Joanie doing the work, his Joanie who might need
his help, Odeon would have taken advantage of his non-Inquisitor status
to leave. He'd taken part in some second-stage interrogations, on
occasion enjoyed them if the recipient had done something particularly
revolting--but even the most methodical of those beatings seemed more
human, cleaner, than the cool, meticulous infliction of pain both
Inquisitors so obviously enjoyed. At first he'd thought Joanie's
enjoyment a pretense intended to make her subject's torment harder to
endure, but he couldn't convince himself of that any longer. Joanie
was enjoying her subject's anguish, taking a delight in his screams and
writhings that Odeon found sickening. But it was Joanie; after what
had been done to her, surely she had a right to whatever pleasures she
could find . . .
Cortin was beginning to think she'd miscalculated her subject's
resistance when screams of defiance turned abruptly, as anticipated,
into hopeless whimpering sobs mixed with pleas for mercy. She looked
past him to Illyanov, who nodded; while he finished, she went to the
instrument table and picked up a slender, razor-sharp dagger.
"Here is the end to your pain," she said softly, laying it against the
raw flesh of the rogue's throat. "As soon as you answer my questions,
I will give you your release. You have learned that you cannot lie to
me; try it again, and you will find what has happened so far only the
beginning. Do you understand?"
"Yes . . . Oh, God, no more!"
"That is up to you, not Him; you gave up any claim on His Mercy when
you pledged allegiance to His enemies." Though, an inner voice said,
he could still repent . . . "Tell me about Lawrence Shannon. Who he
is, where he is, what his plans are."
"I don't know all that . . . please, I don't!"
He was telling the truth, unfortunately. "Very well. Tell me what you
do know, then."
"I'm . . . not sure. No! Honest--he's the Raidmaster, everyone knows
that--plans all the new-style raids--but nobody knows him. A Lawrence
Shannon even leads all those raids, but not the same one, maybe not the
one who plans 'em. An' that's all I know about 'im, honest!"
"I believe you," Cortin said. It was too bad he knew so little, and
that so inconclusive, but she had no doubt that he was telling her all
he did know, as she'd asked. "Have you heard anything else? It need
not be certain--a rumor of his plans, perhaps."
"No . . . no, wait . . . maybe. I overheard something . . . a hospice
. . . or could be a retirement home, or some sort of hospital. Old
folks, or sick ones, anyway. That's all."
"All on that subject, or all on any?"
"All on any . . . please?"
"You have earned it." Cortin drove the knife up under his ear; he
gasped, shuddered once, and died.
Cortin looked at him for a moment, then smiled. "Compared to your
present master, my friend, I was easy on you. May you suffer under him
for eternity."