Release (19 page)

Risciter strode across the room. He put his hands on either side of the chair and his face inches from Keirth’s. “When we last saw each other, I told you that we were going to reenact the scene from when I killed your mother. But you decided to muck up that plan, didn’t you? That really made me angry. I guess you’ve seen what happens when I get angry.”

Keirth felt sick. All those women.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” said Risciter.

Keirth forced himself to nod. “I get it. But why don’t you let Ariana go? She’s got nothing to do with this. This is between you and me.”

Risciter laughed. “On the contrary. This is most certainly about Ariana. Or perhaps you’re forgetting that she beat me over the head with a fallen log.” He glared at Ariana on the bed. “She needs to pay for that, little slut.” Risciter pulled a comm out of his pocket. He hit a few buttons, then spoke into it. His voice sounded shaky, like he was afraid. “I’m on Scranth. Please come. It’s horrible. Keirth Transman has murdered Miss Gilit and a whole brothel full of whores. I managed to fight him off. He wanted to kill me as well, but I got the upper hand and killed him. I wish I could have saved Miss Gilit. Please hurry.” Then he snapped off the comm and grinned at Keirth.

Keirth was shocked. What was Risciter playing at? He planned to kill them both, then, but that had always been obvious. But he wanted to pin all these murders on Keirth? Why? What made the man so twisted?

“The deaths of a few beggars and whores don’t matter much,” Risciter said to him. “But the death of the daughter of a duke? Someone would ask questions. You’re a lucky find, boy. A scapegoat.” He laughed.

Keirth couldn’t let this happen. He would not watch while Risciter raped Ariana and killed her. He’d failed his mother. He’d failed all the women in the brothel. He’d failed that poor little girl on the bunk. But he had to do something now. He rocked on the chair again, trying to force all his weight back onto one leg. The chair wobbled, groaned.

Risciter snapped his head back to him.

Keirth returned all the legs of the chair to the floor. He strained against the ropes again.

Risciter went to Ariana. He ran his knife over the planes and curves of her body, tracing the outlines of her nipples with his blade.

Ariana whimpered.

“Don’t touch her!” Keirth growled, pitching forward on the chair. It fell over with him on it and his knees crashed painfully against the floor.

Risciter chuckled. He came over to Keirth and righted the chair. “You’re pathetic, boy. You can’t save her.” He went back to the bed.

But Keirth had felt it when the chair went back on its legs. The wood had splintered in the fall. One of the legs was weak now. He could break it, if he just put enough pressure on it...

Keirth leaned onto the weakened leg.

Risciter’s hands were all over Ariana’s body. “So beautiful,” he murmured. He turned to Keirth. “Should I make her suck my cock? Would you like that? Or should we just skip right to the main event?” His hands trailed between Ariana’s legs, one finger probing her.

Keirth looked away. He shouldn’t be seeing this.

“Fuck you, Risciter.” Ariana’s voice was shaky, but still full of fight.

Keirth had to get free. He leaned against the chair leg again, hearing the wood splinter a little further. Frightened Risciter had heard the noise, he glanced at him.

But Risciter still had his fingers inside Ariana. He was watching her face, smiling as she struggled and glared at him.

Keirth pushed on the chair harder. Another splintering sound.

Risciter moved his hands to his trousers, leering at Ariana as he undid his clothes.

Keirth felt dread and fear surge through him. This couldn’t happen. He had to try harder. He had to stop Risciter. He pushed on the chair leg harder.

But Risciter was climbing onto the bed with Ariana.

“Risciter, don’t,” Ariana was pleading. She was crying again.

Keirth dragged all his attention away from the bed and focused on the chair. He rocked on it, throwing his full weight onto the damaged leg. There was a resounding crack as the leg splintered completely, pitching Keirth onto the ground. His leg was free.

Risciter turned at the noise. “You’re always trouble, boy.”

Keirth struggled with the rest of the chair on the floor. One of his legs was free. The rope tying it to the broken leg had slipped off. But he was still bound to the arms and leg of rest of the chair, which was intact.

Risciter surveyed him. He thrust into Ariana.

Keirth screamed in rage. Not again. He would not watch this monster do this again. With his free leg, he kicked at the chair. He yanked against the ropes with all the strength he had, throwing the force of his anger behind it.

The chair snapped into pieces. Keirth stumbled to his feet, pieces of wood still tied to his limbs.

And then he was pulling Risciter off the bed, and the two were wrestling on the floor. Keirth punched Risciter in the nose, and he started bleeding.

But Risciter had his knife still. He stabbed at Keirth, sinking the blade into Keirth’s shoulder.

Keirth yelped, searing pain flooding his body. But he wasn’t going to let Risciter stop him. Not this time. He reached up and yanked the knife out of his shoulder. Now he was armed and Risciter wasn’t.

Risciter backed away from Keirth, fear in his eyes.

Keirth leapt on him. He plunged the knife into Risciter’s stomach.

Risciter grunted.

Keirth pulled the knife out. There was blood all over his hand. He didn’t care. He stabbed Risciter again, this time in the chest. More blood.

Risciter shrieked.

Frenzied, Keirth raised the knife over his head and began bringing it down over and over again, sinking it into Risciter’s skin one time after another. Blood sprayed over Risciter’s clothes, over Keirth’s hands. It spattered in his face.

After some time, Keirth realized Risciter wasn’t screaming anymore. He stopped. He stood up. He backed away from Risciter, who hardly looked like Risciter anymore. He was a twisted piece of meat and blood, mangled by the knife.

Keirth looked down at the knife in his hand. He dropped it, letting it clatter on the floor.

This wasn’t how he’d pictured it. He’d thought that he’d say something scathing and witty to Risciter. He’d thought he’d wrench an apology from the man, make him plead for his life. Instead...

Ariana made a little gasp behind him.

Ariana!

Keirth found a blanket on the ground and threw it over her body, covering her nakedness. He fished the knife up off the floor and cut her ropes.

She was shaking. She pulled the blanket tight against her body. “Thank you,” she said.

He looked at Risciter’s remains on the floor, at the blood all over his hands and arms. He wasn’t sure “thank you” was the thing he would have said to him right now.

Ariana sucked in a shuddering breath. “I want to take a shower,” she said. “You should take one too.”

He should wash away this blood, shouldn’t he? He probably looked like a monster to her, not a rescuer or a hero.

“But we have to be quick,” Ariana said. “Risciter called someone on the comm. They think you did this.”

* * *

Hyperspace streamed by on the visual in the bridge. Ariana sat on a chair, hugging her knees to her chest. She and Keirth had left Scranth behind only an hour ago. They hadn’t spent much time talking. They were both in shock. That was what she thought, anyway.

Ariana didn’t know how she should be feeling right now. She felt like she couldn’t quite remember what had happened to her. She’d woken up tied to the bed in the cottage. There were flashes of Risciter talking to her. Flashes of his hands on her, which made her shudder. Flashes of his knife, glinting wickedly in the light. Flashes of him inside her. Ugh.

But it had only been for a second. She’d felt him push his way inside her, smelled him, felt like vomiting...

And then he wasn’t there anymore. There were just noises and grunts and screams and...

Keirth had killed him. Keirth had saved her.

But Keirth wasn’t talking to her. He was sitting in the pilot’s seat, punching things in on the console.

Abruptly, the visual of hyperspace switched off.

“Gives me a headache,” said Keirth.

Ariana had thought it was pretty. But she didn’t protest. She hugged her knees closer to her chest. What would happen now? “Where are we going?” she asked.

Keirth didn’t look up from the console. “I picked random coordinates. I don’t know. When get there, we can pick another destination if you want.”

They were on a ship to nowhere. She wasn’t a virgin anymore. Was she? Did it count, what Risciter did? It had only been a moment. And Keirth was a wanted criminal, because they’d think... What would they think? Risciter had told the comm that both of them were dead. When they found the bodies on Scranth, would they know that Risciter had been lying?

Somehow, she didn’t think they would.

She looked at Keirth. She’d started this whole mess trying to save Risciter. But she’d ended up cheering Keirth on inside her head as he’d killed Risciter. She was glad he was dead. Everything was different now. Everything.

* * *

Sergeant Nol Praxider of the Intergalactic Police stepped out of the brothel on Scranth. He took in a long breath of clean, fresh air. Praxider wasn’t a stranger to scenes of slaughter, but this was perhaps one of the worst he’d ever seen. So many bodies. So many dead.

They wouldn’t even have found them if it hadn’t been for the distress call from the Duke of Risciter. The brothel was so remote, and its clientele probably not men on the right side of the law, that even if one of them had discovered it, they probably wouldn’t have reported it. Praxider thought of all these dead bodies rotting as the elements reclaimed the group of cottages. He shuddered.

But even with the tip off, things were not cut and dry. The Duke had claimed that Keirth Transman, the man he said had committed these murders, was dead. But there was no sign of Transman, and the duke himself had been killed viciously. Praxider had yet to count the number of stab wounds in the duke’s body. The only other body in the place that had been dealt with similarly was that of the madam’s, who also sported numerous stab wounds. That hadn’t been what killed her, though. She’d been killed by the cut to the throat, like all the other women’s bodies. Only the men lacked the trademark throat slash of this killer, including the duke, who seemed to have stabbed in a fury. Perhaps Transman only cut the throats of women.

It was obvious, though, given that the duke was dead, that Transman hadn’t been nearly as dead as the duke had thought.

The case bothered Praxider. He knew, of course, that there had been a distress call from Miss Ariana Gilit, claiming to have been captured by a man they now knew to be Keirth Transman. The Duke claimed that Transman had also killed Miss Gilit, but her body wasn’t here. Was she alive as well? Had the duke been mistaken about that?

Or had Transman taken her body with him? A man who slit the throats of this many prostitutes clearly was a sick man. Maybe he wanted to do disgusting things to Miss Gilit’s body.

But one thing bothered Praxider more than anything. If Transman had wanted to kill Miss Gilit, why had it taken him so long? Why not kill her right when he captured her?

He looked back at the brothel. Would he find his answers inside? He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He didn’t want to look at all the dead girls again.

* * *

The Duke of Tramet read the story on the nets with a heavy heart. So, Keirth was a murderer, was he? He shouldn’t have hoped for better, he realized. If only he’d gotten to the boy sooner. His mother had made it damned difficult, though, hadn’t she, traipsing all over the galaxy the way she had? It was a miracle Tramet had even known about Keirth in the first place, let alone tracked him down and followed him.

He supposed it should have been expected. The boy’d had a terrible life. His mother had seen to that. She’d raised him amongst lowlifes. She’d exposed him to all kinds of horrific things. The boy probably couldn’t help but absorb all that and come out mean.

Ah, but Tramet was making excuses, wasn’t he? Did it really matter why Keirth had killed people? He’d killed people. Tramet didn’t do himself any favors by harboring any more sympathy for the boy. He’d have to let it go.

It wasn’t worth it anymore. Keirth was a monster. Tramet wanted nothing more to do with him. Besides, since Risciter had been his only lead, and Risciter was now dead, the trail had gone cold. It was time to give up.

Chapter Thirteen

Keirth crawled into the tiny bed on the ship, pulling the thin blanket over his body. He and Ariana hadn’t gotten much sleep, and though he didn’t feel tired exactly, he noted that Ariana had dark circles under her eyes and suggested they try to nap. The ship would be in hyperspace for several more hours. He’d programmed the ship to wake him by alarm before they reached their destination, wherever that might be. He really should look up the coordinates and find out where he’d sent them.

He started to get out of bed but then stopped. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care where they ended up. Not really.

He lay on his back, staring up into the darkness of the room. He had thought it would feel different. He’d been focusing on this for so long. He’d lived for killing Risciter. Now that Risciter was dead, he’d expected to feel vindicated and triumphant. He’d expected to have a feeling of accomplishment. But he didn’t feel anything, not really.

It hadn’t gone the way he’d planned it. In his dreams, he’d snuck up on Risciter, taken him unawares, tied him up and gloated over him while Risciter cringed from him in fear. He’d dreamed of wrenching apologies from Risciter’s lips, of hearing Risciter say over and over again that he regretted what he’d done.

In reality, it had been chaotic. Risciter had outsmarted him more than once. He’d had no control over the situation. He’d killed Risciter, not out of revenge, not really, but to protect Ariana, to save himself. It wasn’t quite the same thing.