Edge of Midnight (40 page)

Osterman peeled off bloody latex gloves. “I got the idea years ago, trying out therapies in a mental health clinic. Controlled electrical stimulation to certain parts of the brain, coupled with a drug I’ve named the X-Cog series, produces what I call an interface.” He put a silver helmet on. “This is the master crown. You’re wearing the slave crown.”

Sean realized that he was wearing a helmet, too. His head itched.

“With these, I suppress the part of your brain that governs motor control, and send my own impulses directly from my brain to your body. I can make you do absolutely anything. You watch, conscious, but helpless. Hijacked.” He stopped, his face expectant. Like he though Sean would exclaim in admiration at his brilliance. Sean just stared at the guy, struck mute. Dread swelled up, monstrous inside him.

“Anyway. You’ll see soon enough.” Osterman yanked an IV rack over, and slid a needle into the back of Sean’s hand. “Let’s get started.”

“With what?” He didn’t want to know, but he couldn’t help asking.

“At first, I just thought that enslaving Ms. Endicott and having her perform degrading sexual acts with and upon Gordon would be entertaining, but it’s been done, and sex gets so tedious, you know?”

“Chris prefers a good mindfuck to any other kind,” T-Rex said.

Osterman’s smile froze. “Keep your editorial comments to yourself, Gordon.”

“Do whatever you want to me,” Sean said. “Just don’t hurt her.”

“Oh, I won’t.” Osterman’s smile looked almost jolly. “You will.”

Sean’s throat clamped down over the words. “I what?”

“You, Mr. McCloud. You will be the one to torture her. What better way to demonstrate what the X-Cog can do? I want to to see how far I can push the interface. If I can smash through all moral and ethical boundaries. Imagine the applications, if I can compel you to do something which is morally repugnant to you. I’ve never tried that.”

Sean tried to shake his head, but it was clamped ruthlessly into place. “No,” he whispered.

The phone on Gordon’s belt rang. He picked up. “Yeah? I’ll check on it.” He clicked it shut. “Brice needs help wiping his ass. A car turned onto Schuyler Road, but didn’t come out.” He grabbed Cindy’s hair as he passed, yanking it. “I’ll be back, honey. Don’t go anywhere.” He swiped a card, peered into the retina scan machine, and left.

Osterman swatted Liv’s cheek. “We’ve waited long enough.”

“Yeah, I see. I’m handy when you guys need to borrow a car or do your computer shit work, but if anything important’s happening, it’s ‘go suck your thumb in the closet ’til it’s safe to come out, Miles.’”

“We don’t have time for this argument,” Con said. “You don’t even have a gun. If we don’t come back, you have to bring reinforcements.”

“So that’s when I can help,” Miles snarled. “When everybody else has croaked, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Just great. Thanks, guys.”

“You can get over it and be of actual use to us and to Cindy, or you can get clubbed over the head and stuffed into the trunk.” Davy’s voice was steely. “Those are your options. Choose quickly.”

Miles slumped down against the trunk of the cedar tree, defeated.

The two McClouds melted into the trees with the Specs handheld monitor, off to track down the signal from Cindy’s cell while he sat here with his thumb up his ass. It didn’t matter how hard he worked. No amount of training would ever get him up to par. And he was having a pity party, while Cindy chatted up a serial killer. Bat-brained, beautiful Cindy.

He wanted to howl like a chained dog.

He stared down at the grounds. The beacon in Cin’s cell had been stationary, bleeping from the far edge of the complex. It made no sense for him to lurk up here. He should at least get closer to the main house.

There was a hedge down there. Good cover. Sean always talked about the importance of trusting your instincts. His own were biting his ass, with long pointy teeth, telling him to move, move, move.

A troll was looming over her. Blood-spattered, fanged, horrible, red flames flickering in the empty black sockets of his eyes.

Someone smacked her face. She blinked startled tears out of her eyes. The face was handsome, smiling, human, now, but the bloody coat he wore was the same. “I’m so glad you’ve woken up,” he said.

Liv tried to lift her aching head. Memories drifted back. The clinic. Her mother’s taunting voice. The needle. The monster. She peered around. “Where’s T-Rex?” Her voice was a cracked whisper.

The man looked blank. “You mean Gordon? He’ll be back. Gordon lives for my experiments. I let him participate, and in return, he cleans up my messes. It’s a perfect symbiotic relationship.”

“How did he know…where I was?”

“He’s been monitoring your parents,” the guy explained. “Gordon planted bugs in your mother’s purses. We were sure you’d be foolish enough to contact them. They made our work so easy, reeling you in like that. But I won’t wait for Gordon, though. I’m too eager to proceed. He can play with the other girl later. That should content him.”

Other girl? Liv heard a whimpering sound. She craned her neck, saw the slender form huddled on the floor at the far end of the room.

She turned back to the man. “Proceed with what?”

The man rubbed his hands together. “With the experiments, of course,” he said, his voice gleeful. “On your lover. I’m so excited.”

“Sean?” She looked around wildly, pulling against the straps.

“Hey, my love. This shithead is Osterman. The guy who offed Kev.” The voice came from behind her. She craned back, looked at him upside down. He was strapped into a chair, streaming with blood.

“Oh, Sean,” she whispered. “Sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

His eyes were full of grief and pain. “Liv? Baby? Whatever happens now? I love you. Remember that.”

The guy he’d called Osterman laughed. “I will be curious to see if she manages to remember it, after what you are about to do to her.”

He grabbed a rolling cart piled with objects, and pulled it to the gurney. “Instruments of torture, gleaned from my kitchen and garage. Pliers,” he displayed each item, “a scalpel, a handsaw, a nut-cracker for fingers, a tire iron for breaking the larger bones, and this.” He held up a bronze device that she didn’t recognize until he flipped a switch. Blue flame hissed out of the curved pipe. “A blowtorch,” he said proudly.

She started to shake. Thought of Tam’s ring. If all else fails, you can open a vein with it. Well and good, if your hands were fastened together. Hers were strapped on either side of her. The worst she could do would be to stab a hole in the pad of her thumb.

Osterman peered into Sean’s eyes. “Are you still able to speak?”

Sean’s mouth worked. “Go fuck yourself.” The words were slurred.

Osterman adjusted the knobs on Sean’s helmet. He turned Liv’s gurney around. “So you can watch,” he said, as if conferring a treat.

Sean’s face stiffened into a mask. Osterman stared, licking his lips. “He’s mine. I’m command central of his brain. Isn’t it incredible?”

“You sick fuck,” Liv whispered.

He giggled. “Sean, you will feel an impulse to hold up a certain number of fingers.” He leaned down, and whispered into Liv’s ear as if they were playing a party game. “I’ll tell him three. This is a direct impulse, from my brain to his hand. Watch carefully!”

Sean’s hand twitched, clenched. The plastic tubing leading into the needle twisted around his wrist. He held up three shaking fingers.

“Very good,” Osterman said.

Sean’s hand kept moving. His index and fourth finger trembled, and curled down, leaving his middle finger sticking straight up.

Liv wanted to cheer at his desperate defiance. God, she loved him.

Osterman turned to the IV rack, adjusted the drip. “Most subjects would be in convulsions at this point. We’ll try this again, Sean.”

Sean’s hand shook. Tears trickled from his eyes. A thread of blood ran out of his nose. Liv bit her lip, trying not to whimper.

“You learn more about the choreography of mental domination by working with the strong ones,” he said smugly. “It’s more complicated than you might think. But I’ve been practicing for decades.”

Liv tried to moisten her cracked lips. “Why do you hate him?”

Osterman looked surprised. “Oh, but. I don’t hate any of my test subjects. I just…happen to them. Like a stroke. If I want results which translate into rapid advances in medical treatments, and defense applications that contribute directly to the security of my nation, a price must be paid. And I sincerely believe the price is worth it.”

“But you’re not the one paying it,” Liv pointed out.

Osterman blinked, and cleared his throat. “Ah. Well. Point taken. However, you can’t get out of being tortured to death by your lover. Besides, I have a meeting later, and I’ll need time to clean up. Let’s see how Mr. McCloud is coming along.”

Liv looked, and cried out involuntarily. Sean’s nose bled from both sides now. His mouth and jaw were a gleaming crimson mask.

“Observe, if you will.” Osterman had a lecturing, professorial tone as he unbuckled the straps that held Sean’s arms. “He can’t move a muscle, other than breathing, swallowing and suchlike, unless the impulse comes from me. Watch this.” He picked up the tire iron.

“No!” Liv shrieked, as he whipped it down, smacking hard right against Sean’s blood-drenched, injured shoulder.

Sean didn’t move. Fresh blood streamed down his arm, dripping off the ends of his fingers and onto the floor. His eyes burned wildly.

Osterman dropped the tire iron, hands opening and closing. “See?” His voice shook with excitement. “He didn’t even flinch, and that had to hurt. There’s nothing wrong with his nerve receptors, you see.”

She wanted to scream, but once she started, she wasn’t going to be able to stop. If the blade on Tam’s ring were longer, she would spare them what was about to happen. Without hesitation.

Osterman was undoing the restraints that had fastened Sean into the chair; wrists, ankles, arms, the belt around his waist. Sean began to move. He got slowly to his feet, and shuffled towards Liv’s gurney.

“Good boy,” Osterman crooned. “You’re doing wonderfully.” He glanced at Liv. “Just think of the applications for weapons defense.”

“Stop,” Liv told him, her voice cracking. “Just stop.”

“Oh? Really? Should I?” His mouth stretched in a hideously cheerful smile. His eyes were utterly mad. “I don’t think so. Let’s start with the blowtorch, hmm?”

She shrank back. Sean awkwardly picked up the blowtorch. He flicked the switch several times before he managed to turn it on.

She stared into his eyes. It took several tries to get the words out. “Sean. Wh-whatever happens now…I l-love you.”

“Aw.” Osterman let out a sigh. “Brings tears to my eyes. And speaking of eyes. Let’s start with one of hers.” He patted her cheek. “Feel free to scream,” he invited her. “The place is soundproofed.”

The girl tied to the radiator started to wail. Osterman spun around. “Shut up, or I’ll have him start with you instead,” he barked.

The girl curled up with a keening moan, and began to rock.

Sean’s body jerked, shuddered. He took a shuffling step closer.

Liv squeezed her eyes shut, cringing away.

The impulse to lift the blowtorch, and burn Liv’s beautiful, tear-streaked face with it.

He could sense Osterman’s gloating pleasure. Fucking with him and liking it. The foul intimacy of the contact made him want to vomit.

Consciousness of who he was, what was happening, wrapping itself into a protective bubble, retreating from the horror…

He yanked it back. Pain roared through his body afresh. If he let go of that bubble, he was dead meat walking. Osterman’s pet zombie.

Time warped, stretched. He hung on, shuddering to stay still while Osterman yanked the puppet strings. The room spun. He was trapped in the center, in a fiery pillar of agony. His father stood before him, his lean face seamed with pain and loss. He contemplated his lastborn son’s distress as if he were all too familiar with it.

Do the hard thing, he advised, his voice dour.

Sean would have laughed, if he could. Yeah, Dad. And what might that fucking hard thing be? It’s all hard.

Eamon nodded gravely. Turn it around.

Turn what around? How? I’m paralyzed!

Eamon was gone. Sean sat on the plank floor of the kitchen. A woman with blond hair sat with him. She had dimples. Beautiful green eyes. A rush of emotion made his heart leap. Mom?

She held a piece of gray plastic tubing, from the irrigation pipes his father was laying outside, tilted it down towards him, and poked something into it. A ball bearing rolled into his palm. A toddler’s hand. Knuckles dimpled. Grubby, dirty nails. Turn it around. Send it back.

Then he was on the cot in his room, staring at the mandala on the ceiling. Its hypnotic curves sucked him up, tossed him in the air. He swooped with the stunt kite over a desert landscape. The colors of the kite were so bright against that vast, aching blue. turn it around

He followed the cord down to the figure far below. Tall, dirt blond hair, buzzed so short it was mouse brown. The man lifted his face.

It was Kev, but not the Kev that he remenbered. This was a Kev Sean had never known. His face was thin, seamed and hard. His eyes distant. The entire right side of his face was puckered with scars.

Sean opened his streaming eyes, stared at Liv, lying on that table.

She told him she loved him. While he held a blowtorch over her.

turn it around

His mother held out the length of gray tubing.

He took it, held it to his eye. It was no longer gray plastic. He was looking through a throbbing red wormhole. He gathered his strength.

turn it around

He dove. The universe screamed with him as he raced through the wormhole, burrowed into the polluted place that was Osterman’s brain.

He sank the talons of his will into the other man’s mind, and reeled. These were not his hands, clutching the scalpel. Not his muscles trembling, not his limbs holding this body upright.

Not his, this dead, rotting heart, that somehow still beat.

He couldn’t keep this up. Pressure was building. There was no valve to release it. He spoke, haltingly. Alien vocal folds vibrated, the pitch and timbre all wrong, and he fumbled with the wrong teeth, the wrong tongue, but still, the words came out, of Osterman’s mouth.

“Goodbye, princess,” he said thickly. “I love you.”

His/Osterman’s hand whipped up, slashing the scalpel deep into the man’s carotid artery. Sean felt the awful pain of it. The heat of the arc of blood that sprayed, spattered across Liv. It welled over his/Osterman’s chest. A series of soft explosions popped, in his head.

Darkness rushed in, and swallowed him whole.

Liv beat and flailed against her bonds as Osterman flopped down on top of her. His dead weight crushed her lungs. His hot blood pumped out, soaking into her blouse, trickling over her ribs. His face dangled over her ribs, wet mouth gaping, eyes white-rimmed like a mad horse.

She shrieked, bucking madly, bowing herself up in an arch until the heavy body shifted and slid into a heap on the ground.

Sean still stood, his face blank. She screamed his name, but his eyes no longer saw her. The blowtorch fell, bounced, still hissing.

Sean toppled, rigid as a tree crashing down. He hit the rolling table of improvised torture implements. It tipped, and the stuff clattered and crashed to the floor. So did the big, uncapped bottle of alcohol.

The liquid glugged out onto the floor tiles in a spreading puddle. Rivulets reaching out like tentacles, towards the blowtorch, hissing on the floor. The clear liquid inched closer to the tongue of blue flame.

Swoosh, fire found the volatile liquid, and a thread of flame raced its way back to the big mother puddle. Whump, the pool caught fire.

Heat crackled, roared. The air shimmered and shook.

The girl tied to the radiator began to scream.

The raggedy hole in the foliage of the rhododendrons was just big enough so that Miles could watch the guy approach. Big, muscle going to fat…that lantern jaw, those pale eyes, where had he seen that guy?

The tape. It was the grave digger from Kev’s tape. Fifteen years older, heavier, thicker, but it was him. Even the rolling, apelike walk was the same. A knee-weakening rush of fear pulsed through him.

The guy slowed down, and grabbed a walkie talkie off his belt. He put it to his ear. “What the fuck is it now? You gotta learn to wank off by yourself, Brice. Don’t ask me to jerk your willie for you, because I got my own—” His voice trailed off. “Fire? In C Building? What the fuck?”

He spun around, and took off at a dead run.

Miles scrambled to his feet and took off after him. Anything that made that guy run had to be Miles’s business. He had to keep this guy in sight while staying somehow invisible himself.

Tough, for an unarmed, clueless geek dressed in fucking Armani.

Oh God they were going to die they were going to roast and fry—

“Hey! You! Girl! Shut up and listen to me!”

The sharp words somehow cut through the terror in Cindy’s brain. She flipped her hair aside to peek at the woman strapped to the cot. Liv. Erin had told her about Liv, the goddess. Liv’s head and shoulders were lifted off the gurney. Her eyes blazed with urgency.

“Do you want to live?” she demanded.

Cindy sucked in a sobbing breath. “Y-yes!”

“Good. What’s your name?”

“C-Cindy,” she chattered out.

“Listen up, Cindy. I’ve got a trick ring. Press hard on the stone and a tiny knife pops out. I can’t use it, but you could. Understand?”

Cindy tried to swallow with her shaking throat, and nodded.

The woman worked the ring off her trapped hand with her middle finger and thumb. “I’m going to throw this to you. Cross your fingers.”

Liv’s wrist flicked. A small, shining golden thing flipped into the air in a long, low arc. It hit, bounced, bounced again. Rolled. It was like breathlessly watching a roulette wheel as it spun and stopped.

Three feet away from Cindy’s sneakered feet.

“Oh, shit, oh hell, oh fuck!” Cindy shrieked. She flung herself out, stretching, rubber-soled shoes squeaking, groping and scrabbling. Liv bit her lip and closed her eyes, letting her head drop down onto the cot.

No way was she going to die like this. Not Liv, either. Or Sean, whom she liked. Sean was by far the nicest of the grim McCloud crowd. She kicked off her sneakers, gripped the hem of her jeans between her toes and started tugging. Thank God for low rise. She flailed, kicked, until they were long tubes of denim stuck to her ankles.

“Hurry,” Liv begged.

Cindy lifted her ankles, and flung the wad of fabric out.

The waistband fell inches short of the ring. The next try hit, but sent the thing skittering a foot to the left and inches further away.

Cindy pried the jeans down until they were all the way off, then clamped the hem of the legs between her toes. She lifted. Flung.

The butt part of the jeans landed on the ring. She heard a voice chanting as she reeled it in. It was her own voice, whimpering “please, God, please, God.” Liv was yelling, hurry, hurry. Tears and snot ran down her face. She bent herself inside out to get her bare foot onto the ring, to nudge it under herself. Her fingers groped, grabbed, slid it on. It was too big, but she twirled it around, shoved the stone.

The knife sprang out, bit her. Blood ran over her hand, but she still went at it, straining and sawing at the duct tape ’til it broke free. She struggled to her feet, stumbled across the room. Yanked at the buckle straps holding Liv’s wrists down. Liv leaped off the bed, dove for Sean. She grabbed him under the armpits, but could barely move him. Cindy jolted into action, grabbed the other shoulder.

Liv hit the tire iron with her foot. Scooped it up. By the time they got to the door, the room was choked with acrid smoke. The door was locked. Liv flung herself at it, yelling and pounding with the tire iron. The thing barely scratched the varnish. Cindy tugged at her arm.

“We need that guy’s body!” she coughed out. “We need his eye!”

“What?” Liv yelled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“His eye!” Cindy croaked, louder. “The door’s got one of those retina scan lock doohickeys. I think the card’s in his pocket.”

Cindy fell to her knees, took as deep a breath as she could, and scrambled over the floor. Flames roared against the back wall. The sicko doctor’s shoes were smoldering. She grabbed his arm. Liv blundered out of the smoke, and grabbed the other arm. Somehow, they got the corpse to the door. Cindy rummaged in his pockets for the key card.

“We gotta get him on his feet,” she panted. She and Liv hoisted up the dead weight of the guy’s bloody, neck lolling, head-flopping corpse up to eye level. “Ohmigod, this is sickening! I want to barf,” Cindy gasped.

“Later,” Liv sputtered, coughing. “Barf later.”

Cindy swiped the card. The machine beeped. She pried the doctor’s eyelid open. Put his clammy, scummy dead eyeball up to the scanner. A red light shot in, turned green. Click, the lock popped loose.

The doctor’s corpse pitched over the threshhold. They kicked him aside to make way to drag Sean. Stumbled towards the end of the smoky tunnel, hacking and spitting. They shoved open the door, tumbled out into sweet, fresh air. Smoke boiled out along with them.

Click. The sound of a bullet being chambered. They spun around.

“Just where do you ladies think you’re going?” Gordon rasped.

Miles’s shoe slipped on the branch. He grabbed the bough above his head. There was so much smoke in the air, he hoped that the leaves and twigs falling to the ground would go unnoticed.

He’d crawled off the roof of the underground building, and onto an overhanging branch. He was filthy from crawling on his belly through mud and leaves. His legs wobbled and shook. They could probably hear his heart thudding a half a mile away.

The grave digger’s taunting voice floated up from below. “…one of you shall I shoot first? Tough choice. I wanted to bang you both before I snuffed you, but it looks like I’m going to have to pick. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Did you take your pants off just for me?”

A low, hacking cough. “No, I didn’t.” Cindy’s voice was hoarse, but steady. “Fuck off and die, you sick asshole.”

Miles inched further out. The slender bough he crouched on was bowing under his weight, but he wasn’t over T-Rex’s head yet. He was only getting one chance at surprising this guy. It had better count.

“Ooh. Naughty girls who use bad words will get punished,” T-Rex crooned. “Turn around, sweet cheeks. Show me your ass.”

“Not,” Cindy said. Her voice shook.

“Let me restate that. Turn around or I’ll gut-shoot you.”

Miles took one more shuffling step. Another. Almost there…

Crack. The branch broke. Down he went, along with what felt like half the tree. He landed on top of the guy. Thuds, shrieks, shouts.

A gun went off. He was flung, like a toy. Concrete smacked him, conking his head. T-Rex came at him, screaming with rage.

Miles’s body jackknifed. His dress shoes slammed into the other man’s gut, lifting him, tossing him headlong. He rolled up onto his feet. So did the other guy. Miles’s leg whipped out at T-Rex’s gun hand, and he was astonished to make contact. Smack. The gun flipped, twirled. Miles lunged, but T-Rex jabbed in a frontal kick, right into his nose.

Blood squirted. Miles reeled back, saw stars. Crunch, he took another doozy to the ribs. He fell, saw the gun, reached for it—

T-Rex kicked it away, and stomped on Miles’s fingers with a huge booted foot. “I don’t think so, dickhead,” he snarled.

There was a crackling, popping noise. Miles screamed as the boot crushed all the bones in his hand. He grabbed Miles’s wrist, lifted his boot off. Wrenched the arm up, and violently back. Snap. Agony.

Then T-Rex stumbled back. Cindy was clinging to his back like a crazy monkey, clawing at his face with something sharp. He bellowed, and flung her off. She flew, legs flailing, hit the concrete. Lay very still.